I 


Vy  4  67 


I  41  An ^ 


BOOK     104.W687    c.  1 

WILM    #    STUDIES    IN    PHILOSPHV    AND 

THEOLOGY 


3  T1S3  000STb33  D 


Date  Due 


■ 

Demco  293-5 

1 

BOOKS  BY  BORDEN  PARKER  BOWNE 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER,  1874.     (Out  of  print.) 

STUDIES  IN  THEISM,  1879.     (Out  of  print.) 

METAPHYSICS,  1882. 

INTRODUCTION  TO  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY,  1886.    (Out  of  print.) 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  THEISM,  1887.     (Out  of  print.) 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  ETHICS,  1892. 

THEORY  OF  THOUGHT  AND  KNOWLEDGE,  1897. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION,  1898.     (Out  of  print.) 

THE  CHRISTIAN  LIFE,  1899.     (Out  of  print.) 

THE  ATONEMENT,  1900.     (Out  of  print.) 

THE  IMMANENCE  OF  GOD,  1905. 

PERSONALISM,  1908. 

STUDIES  IN  CHRISTIANITY,  1909. 

THE  ESSENCE  OF  RELIGION,  1910. 

KANT  AND  SPENCER,  1912. 


/7^^u^     l/a/i^KcA.    /^z/vt/j'^^ 


Studies  in  Philosophy 
and  Theology 

By  Former  Students  of 
Borden  Parker  Bowne 


Edited  by 

E.  c.  wi,:^.M 

Profesaor  of  Philosophy,  Boston  University 


^^^^ 


XStlatafttK'HBI 


THE    ABINGDON    PRESS 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1922,  by 
E.  C.  WILM 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


<?  CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I.    Editor's  Introduction.    E.  C.  Wilm 7 

II.    The  Empirical  Factor  in  Bowne's  Thinking. 

George  A.  Coe 17 

III.  Neo-Realistic  Theories  of  Value.     Edgar 

Sheffield  Brightman 22 

IV.  A   Truly    Catholic    Spirit     (Illustrated    in 

John  Wesley).     D.  A.  Hayes    65 

V.    Religious  Apriorism.    Albert  C.  Knudson. . .     93 

VI.     Bowne  and  the  Social  Questions.     Francis 

J.  McConnell 128 

VII.    A    Person ALisTic   View   of    Art.       Herbert 

C.  Sanborn 144 

VIII.    Some  Epistemological  Premises.     Benjamin 

W.  Van  Riper 206 

IX.    Democratizing    Theology.      Herbert    Alden 

Youtz 248 


v3 

O 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

The  papers  comprised  in  this  volume  are  by  a  num- 
ber of  Professor  Bowne's  former  students  in  Boston 
University,  and  were  intended  for  publication  in  1920, 
at  the  tenth  anniversary  of  Bowne's  death,  as  a  slight 
token  of  respect  for  a  teacher  whom  they  honor  and 
revere.  It  is  a  matter  of  regret  to  me  that  a  number 
of  circumstances  delayed  the  appearance  of  the  vol- 
ume a  little  beyond  the  time  originally  planned;  never- 
theless, the  purpose  of  the  book  will  still  be  served, 
since,  although  another  year  has  passed,  the  sentiment 
toward  Bowne  of  those  who  knew  him  remains  the 
same. 

It  is  probably  needless  to  say  that  it  is  not  my  in- 
tention (and  I  imagine  I  speak  also  for  those  who 
have  cooperated  with  me  in  this  enterprise)  to  seek, 
through  the  publication  of  this  volume,  to  add  to  the 
reputation  of  Bowne,  or  to  expound  or  defend  the  type 
of  philosophy  for  which  he  stood.  Bowne's  place  in 
the  history  of  philosophy  is  pretty  definitely  known, 
and  cannot  be  enhanced  by  any  eulogies  which  might 
be  pronounced.  From  what  one  gleans  of  his  own 
half-humorous,  self-deprecating  comments,  such  eulo- 
gies would  have  impressed  him  but  little.  He  seems 
to  have  imbibed   somewhere  the  healthy   sentiment 

7 


8  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

which  every  young  beginner  in  philosophy  would  do 
well  to  lay  to  heart,  that  "philosophy  is  an  elegant 
thing,  if  anyone  modestly  meddles  with  it;  but  if  he 
is  conversant  with  it  more  than  is  becoming,  it  cor- 
rupts the  man." 

Nor  would  a  mere  defense  of  his  system  have  pleased 
him  better.  "The  men  who  have  helped  philosophy 
forward,"  he  wrote  shortly  before  his  death,  "have 
seldom  been  men  learned  in  the  bibliography  of  the 
science,  but  men  who  have  grappled  with  the  prob- 
lems themselves."  It  was  Kant's  aim,  we  learn  from 
a  passage  in  the  Prolegomena  to  Every  Future  Meta- 
physic,  not  to  teach  philosophy,  but  how  to  philoso- 
phize— nicht  Philosophie,  sondern  philosophieren.  The 
true  teacher  is  not  bent  upon  obtaining  agreement 
with  his  own  opinions.  He  is  most  pleased  when  he 
detects  in  his  pupils  the  ability  to  grapple  successfully 
with  the  questions  of  philosophy,  and  a  disposition  to 
reenter  the  fields  in  which  he  has  labored,  with  what 
partial  success  no  one  knows  better  than  he.  To  seek 
merely  to  preserve  his  teachings  intact,  and  to  hand 
them  down  to  the  future  unchanged,  is  to  do  philos- 
ophy and  philosopher  small  service.  Intellectual  pro- 
gress results  from  the  strife  of  systems,  from  the 
contact  and  ferment  of  contrasting  views,  not  from 
the  transmission,  in  unchanged  form,  of  any  set  of 
opinions,  no  matter  how  able  or  well  considered. 
"You  cannot  institute,"  said  Emerson,  "without  peril 
of  charlatanism." 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION  9 

Bowne's  relation  to  previous  thinkers  in  the  history 
of  modern  philosophy  is  not  a  matter  of  doubt  to  any- 
one conversant  with  the  course  of  nineteenth-century 
speculation.  He  belongs  to  that  large  school  of  think- 
ers broadly  classed  together  under  the  head  of  post- 
Kantian  idealism.  Leibnitz,  Berkeley,  Kant,  Hegel, 
Herbart,  Green,  Lotze — these  names  suggest  the 
philosophic  tradition  to  whose  influence  he  owes  the 
main  direction  of  his  own  thought.  Although,  as  said, 
he  set  small  store  by  the  merely  historical  study  of 
philosophy,  and  made  scanty  reference  to  other  phil- 
osophers in  his  own  writings,  he  has  himself  clearly 
indicated  his  historical  affiliations  in  a  passage  in  the 
preface  to  the  Metaphysics,  which  he  dedicated  "in 
grateful  recollection  to  the  memory  of  my  friend  and 
former  teacher,  Hermann  Lotze." 

"Among  the  idols  mentioned  by  Bacon,"  he  writes, 
"the  idols  of  the  cave,  or  den,  are  those  which  are 
most  likely  to  influence  students.  The  loneliness  of 
the  study  and  its  distance  from  practical  effort  enable 
such  idols  to  practice  their  malign  seductions  with 
eminent  success.  .  .  .  Whether  in  the  views  herewith 
presented  I  have  grasped  any  truth;  or  whether,  by 
long  brooding  in  solitude,  I  have  fallen  a  prey  to  some 
idol  of  the  philosophic  den,  must  be  left  to  the  reader 
to  decide.  I  am  encouraged,  however,  to  hope  that  I 
have  not  gone  wholly  astray  by  the  fact  that  there  is 
nothing  unheard  of  in  the  results  reached.  Leibnitz 
furnishes    the    starting-point,    Herbart    supplies    the 


10  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

method,  and  the  conclusions  reached  are  essentially 
those  of  Lotze.  I  have  reached  them,  for  the  most 
part,  by  strictly  independent  reflection;  but,  as  far  as 
their  character  is  concerned,  there  would  be  no  great 
misrepresentation  in  calling  them  Lotzian."  The  re- 
examination and  criticism  of  the  fundamental  philo- 
sophical categories  and  concepts,  somewhat  after  the 
manner  of  Herbart,  with  an  idealistic  and  theistic 
outcome,  this  describes  roughly  the  character  and 
trend  of  Bowne's  life  effort. 

I  have  previously  given  a  brief  resume  of  the  prin- 
cipal ideas  of  Bowne's  philosophical  system,  in  a  memo- 
rial article  published  shortly  after  Bowne's  death, ^  and 
I  shall  therefore  not  attempt  to  go  over  the  same  mat- 
ters here,  except  to  indicate  the  most  general  metaphys- 
ical position,  upon  which  everything  else  depended. 

Reality,  according  to  the  school  to  which  Bowne 
belonged,  is  not  definable  in  the  terms  and  categories 
of  mechanical  physics,  but  in  terms  of  consciousness. 
Moreover,  consciousness  is  not  a  mere  collection  of 
passive  and  passing  states,  mere  momentary  and  shift- 
ing ideas,  as  Hume  had  taught;  consciousness,  when 
adequately  understood,  can  only  be  a  conscious  self, 
the  permanent  and  independent  subject  of  experience 
and  of  life.  The  universe  is  immaterial,  conscious 
and  personal  in  its  constitution:  this  is  the  sweeping 
formula  of  personal  idealism. 

With  an  initial  doctrine  of  such  character  and  scope, 

^  American  Journal  of  Theology,  vol.  xiv.  No.  3,  July,  1910. 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION  11 

numerous  special  problems  of  philosophy  and  religion 
are  solved  in  advance.  Mechanistic  naturalism,  which 
recognizes  nothing  in  the  world  but  mass,  motion,  and 
unbending  law,  is  seen  to  be  nothing  more  than  an 
abstraction,  useful  for  intellectual  or  practical  pur- 
poses, but  having  no  metaphysical  reality.  The  ab- 
stract world  of  mechanics  is  a  world  from  which  all 
eflSciency  has  been  emptied  out;  the  real  world  in 
which  we  live  is  a  world  of  living  personalities,  the 
theater  of  purposive  agency  and  will,  of  ideals  and 
moral  imperatives  and  responsibilities. 

Under  such  an  interpretation  of  the  world,  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  as 
two  mutually  exclusive  realms,  is  seen  to  be  a  spurious 
one.  It  is  not  as  if  nature  did  the  bulk  of  the  world's 
work,  while  God  is  reserved  for  interruptions,  excep- 
tions, and  "things  science  cannot  explain."  If  this 
should  be  the  case,  the  scope  of  God's  activity  would 
be  constantly  restricted  as  the  range  of  knowledge 
widens  with  the  progress  of  science,  and  these  unex. 
plained  facts  are  one  by  one  brought  into  relation  with 
a  general  system  of  law  and  order.  No,  the  natural 
roots  in  the  supernatural,  and  the  supernatural,  in 
turn,  manifests  itself  in  the  facts  and  laws  of  our 
everyday  experience. 

Bowne's  central  position  is  stated  with  characteristic 
clearness  and  vigor  in  a  letter  written  under  date  of 
May  22,  1908,  to  Professor  G.  M.  Duncan,  which 
Professor  Duncan  has  kindly  loaned  for  use  in  this 


12  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

connection.  I  take  the  liberty  of  quoting  from  Pro- 
fessor Duncan's  own  account  of  his  meeting  with 
Bowne  on  the  occasion  of  the  latter's  visit  to  New 
Haven  for  the  purpose  of  giving  an  address  before 
the  Yale  Philosophical  Club,  as  it  gives  an  excellent 
impression  of  Bowne,  the  man,  whose  simplicity  and 
personal  charm  impressed  all  who  met  him.  "After 
spending  a  delightful  afternoon  with  me,  and  at  din- 
ner at  my  house  meeting  the  other  members  of  the 
staflF  of  the  Yale  Department  of  Philosophy,  Dr. 
Bowne  gave  a  most  illuminating  and  inspiring  ad- 
dress before  the  Yale  Philosophical  Club  on  the  out- 
look in  philosophy.  He  then  spent  the  night  as  my 
guest  and  the  following  forenoon  we  took  a  walk 
together  to  the  top  of  East  Rock.  We  had  much 
delightful  conversation  and  I  was  deeply  impressed  by 
his  simple,  open,  and  engaging  personality." 

After  his  return  home,  Bowne  wrote  Professor  Dun- 
can a  letter,  from  which  the  following  is  an  extract: 
"I  meant  to  mention  to  you  a  work  which  you  may 
not  have  seen  and  which  I  think  will  prove  to  be 
interesting.  It  is  by  Bergson  and  has  the  title 
VEvolution  Creatrice.  I  have  not  come  upon  it  my- 
self as  yet,  but  I  have  seen  notices  of  it,  especially  one 
by  Father  Tyrrell,  the  Modernist  who  has  recently 
been  banned  by  the  Roman  Church.  It  seems  that 
Bergson  in  this  book  sets  forth  very  strongly  the  com- 
plete failure  of  the  mechanical  doctrine  of  evolution 
and  on  essentially  the  same  grounds  which  are  fa- 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION  13 

miliar  to  us,  namely,  that  logical  equivalence  of  cause 
and  effect  in  the  impersonal  scheme  reduces  every 
such  scheme  to  mere  tautology  and  endless  regress. 
How  much  he  makes  out  of  the  creative  idea  or  how 
he  conceives  it,  I  do  not  know.  Of  course  nothing  can 
be  done  with  it  except  on  the  plane  of  personality,  but 
in  any  case  it  is  progress  to  have  the  mechanical  idea 
shown  in  its  logical  emptiness." 

It  is  superfluous  to  say  nowadays  that  Bowne's  way 
is  but  one  of  numerous  ways  of  envisaging  the  universe, 
and  I  believe  Bowne  was  himself  very  willing  to  recog- 
nize this.  Still,  a  man  cannot  with  equal  conviction 
champion  diverse  philosophical  standpoints,  unless, 
indeed,  he  is  a  mere  student  of  philosophical  systems, 
instead  of  being  a  philosopher  himself,  that  is,  a  stu- 
dent of  the  nature  of  things.  And  it  is  to  Bowne's 
credit  that  he  taught  with  straightforward  sincerity, 
and  without  too  much  regard  to  the  attitudes  of  other 
men,  whether  friends  or  foes,  the  view  of  the  world 
which  seemed  to  him  on  the  whole  the  most  adequate 
and  expressive. 

It  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  say  in  conclusion  that 
a  certain  acrid  quality,  especially  in  Bowne's  earlier 
writings,  and  an  air  of  dogmatic  assurance,  were  per- 
haps largely  due  to  the  controversial  atmosphere  of 
the  time  in  which  he  wrote,  and  were  perhaps  even  a 
sort  of  "compensation  activity,"  or  "defense  mechan- 
ism," as  the  modern  psychoanalyst  might  say;  that  is, 
really  indicative  of  a  sensitiveness  and  diffidence  of 


14  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

character  and  disposition,  which,  however,  conveyed 
to  the  outsider,  and  the  mere  reader  of  his  works,  a 
suggestion  of  intellectual  arrogance  and  of  a  cynical 
attitude  toward  those  who  differed  with  him.  One 
gathers  from  Professor  Duncan's  letter,  and  I  have 
corroborated  this  impression  from  conversation  with 
several  persons  who  were  personally  acquainted  with 
Bowne,  especially  with  Professor  George  Herbert 
Palmer,  who  knew  him  well  and  esteemed  him  highly, 
that  this  is  an  almost  wholly  erroneous  opinion,  and 
that  one  of  Bowne's  most  attractive  qualities  was  a 
quiet  modesty  and  self-effacement,  and  an  entire  ab- 
sence of  that  least  amiable  of  human  qualities,  vanity 
and  self-importance.^    He  was  a  man  of  unobtrusive 

'  As  this  goes  to  press,  the  mail  brings  a  letter  from  Professor  Palmer 
which  is  of  such  interest  that  I  have  asked  him  to  permit  me  to  make 
it  available  to  my  readers. 

11  Quincy  Street,  Cambridge. 
Dear  Professor  Wilm: 

I  did  say  what  you  quote,  and  I  have  no  objection  to  your  printing 
it.  Only  I  think  that  much  of  a  contrary  character  should  also  be  said. 
Bowne  was  ever  a  respecter  of  persons.  When  dealing  with  an  individ- 
ual he  was  most  considerate,  sweet  even,  keeping  himself  in  the  back- 
ground, ready  to  listen.  But  he  was  also  a  man  of  profound  and 
ardent  convictions  who  believed  he  had  a  message  of  great  importance 
(as  I  am  sure  he  had)  and  when  through  writing  he  dealt  with  the  un- 
discriminated public  he  drove  that  message  home  with  pungent  insis- 
tence and  a  superb  scorn  of  all  who  were  disposed  to  other  views. 
Philosophy  was  serious  business  with  him,  not  to  be  taken  lightly. 
This  tendency  of  truculence  toward  unbelieving  sinners  was  much  more 
marked  in  his  early  writing.  As  time  went  on  he  attached  more  im- 
portance to  differing  points  of  view,  where  there  was  seriousness,  and 
never,  even  in  his  most  denunciatory  writing,  is  there  self-assertion. 
Nobody  could  talk  with  him  and  fail  to  see  how  inherently  modest, 
almost  self-distrustful  he  was.  It  was  only  when  truth  called  on  him 
to  be  its  vindicator  against  the  triflers,  the  unthinking,  or  the  irrev- 
erent, that  he  put  on  his  fighting  robes.  A  man  to  love!  Even  those 
who  differed  from  him  I  think  pretty  generally  recognized  him  to  be  a 
truly  great  man,  one  from  whom  petty  self-seeking  was  singularly 
absent. 

I  am  glad  you  are  preparing  this  book,  though  he  perhaps  would 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION  15 

manner,  a  true  friend  and  delightful  companion,  fine- 
grained and  courteous  to  all  he  met,  a  man  "of  singu- 
larly pure  and  lovable  character  and  a  practical 
Christian  experience  of  the  most  convincing  kind." 

In  the  college  classroom  too  he  stood,  I  believe,  the 
acid  test  of  the  true  teacher,  since  the  effect  upon  his 
students  was  to  elicit  and  enlarge,  not  to  oppress  and 
extinguish,  the  intellectual  impulse  of  those  who  came 
under  his  influence.  The  youth  entering  his  class- 
room or  study  not  only  found  inspiration  in  the  wide 
and  accurate  scholarship  and  the  critical  acumen 
evinced  before  him,  but  he  found  encouragement  in 
his  own  efforts  at  reflection,  such  as  only  a  hospitable 
attitude  toward  him  could  make  possible.  It  is  one 
of  the  signs  of  greatness  not  to  misuse  the  possession 
of  power  from  motives  of  egotism  and  self-aggrandize- 
ment. "The  imbecility  of  men,"  says  Emerson,  "is 
always  inviting  the  impudence  of  power.  It  is  the 
delight  of  vulgar  talent  to  dazzle  and  to  blind  the  be- 
holder. But  true  genius  seeks  to  defend  us  from  it- 
self. True  genius  will  not  impoverish,  but  will  liberate, 
and  add  new  senses.  If  a  wise  man  should  appear  in 
our  village,  he  would  create,  in  those  who  conversed 
with  him,  a  new  consciousness  of  wealth,  by  opening 
their  eyes  to  unobserved  advantages;  he  would  estab- 

have  discouraged  it.  A  pity  you  did  not  know  him.  He  was  too  big 
to  be  easily  explainable.  But  the  strong  students  you  have  gathered 
together  will  do  much.  Each  will  illuminate  some  side  of  him,  and  the 
resulting  figure  should  stand  out  as  a  helpful  stimulus  to  all  teachers 
of  Philosophy. 

Faithfully  yours, 
March  5.  1922.  G.  H.  Palmer. 


16  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

lish  a  sense  of  immovable  equality,  calm  us  with  as- 
surances that  we  could  not  be  cheated;  as  every  one 
would  discern  the  checks  and  guaranties  of  condition. 
The  rich  would  see  their  mistakes  and  poverty,  the 
poor  their  escapes  and  their  resources.'* 

I  believe  that  Bowne  deserved  in  no  small  measure 
this  superb  encomium,  so  we  leave  him,  where  he 
wished  to  be  left,  with  his  own  life  and  philosophy  to 
do  their  work,  without  further  praise  or  criticism  here. 
If  any  inquire,  "What  were  his  ideas  and  the  argu- 
ments for  them?"  the  answer  is,  "Yonder  are  his 
works;  few  men  have  been  better  able  to  speak  for 
themselves  than  he." 

E.  C.  WiLM. 


II 

THE  EMPIRICAL  FACTOR  IN  BOWNE'S 
THINKING 

George  A.  Coe 

If  I  were  to  give  a  general  estimate  of  my  loved 
and  revered  teacher.  Dr.  Bowne,  I  should  have  to 
repeat  much  that  I  printed  in  the  Methodist  Review 
in  July,  1910.  Instead  of  repeating,  let  me  endeavor 
to  answer  a  single  question:  What  seems  to  me  now, 
after  the  lapse  of  more  than  a  third  of  a  century  since 
I  sat  in  his  lecture  room,  to  be  the  most  certainly  true 
and  important  contribution  that  he  made  to  the  men- 
tal habits  and  the  mental  furniture  of  us  his  students? 

One's  answer  to  such  a  question  will  reflect,  of 
course,  one's  response,  during  the  intervening  years, 
to  our  rapidly  changing  world  and  to  recent  types  of 
thought.  Bowne's  views  were  formed  at  a  period  so 
different  from  1922  that,  startling  as  the  statement 
may  be,  it  is  literally  true  that  he  did  not  and  could 
not  conceive  of  most  of  the  critical  problems  that  are 
characteristic  of  to-day.  Of  course  it  is  possible  to 
generalize  issues,  and  to  say,  with  truth,  that  in  one 
form  or  another  the  old  questions  persistently  recur 
in  human  experience;  yet  there  is  change  as  well  as 
permanence  in  the  issues.  In  a  growing  world  we 
start  from  different  data;  we  are  moved  by  different 
interests;  our  tools  are  different,  and  our  tests  also 
change.  If,  then,  Bowne's  definition  of  problems,  his 
methods,  and  his  solutions  are  somewhat  out  of  joint 

17 


18  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

with  our  own  reflection,  this  is  but  an  instance  of  the 
universal  dynamics  of  thought  in  a  changing  social 
world.  A  generation  hence  the  critical  thought  of 
to-day  will  have  become  equally  remote  from  the 
students  who  will  then  be  finding  their  own  way  in 
their  own  world. 

Thus  it  is  that  our  systems  "have  their  day  .  .  . 
and  cease  to  be."  This  is  true  of  the  greater  as  well 
as  of  the  lesser  luminaries  in  the  philosophical  firma- 
ment. Yet  all  through  the  history  of  philosophy,  fac- 
tors of  permanent  value,  "broken  lights"  of  the 
inclusive  truth,  are  embedded  in  the  successive  sys- 
tems. The  part  of  Bowne's  thinking  that  seems  to 
live  on  in  the  greatest  vigor  in  our  minds  to-day  is 
the  empirical  rather  than  the  dialectic  or  speculative 
factor.  And  the  particular  empirical  content  that 
looms  most  significantly  in  the  retrospect  is  the 
observable  facts  of  religious  and  moral  life  to  which 
he  insistently  called  attention.  He  turned  multitudes 
of  minds  away  from  religious,  theological,  and  meta- 
physical conventionalities  toward  certain  of  the  liv- 
ing, dynamic  realities  of  experience.  In  spite  of  his 
strong  liking  for  dialectic;  in  spite  of  the  tendency  of 
many  to  estimate  him  in  terms  of  a  system,  I  believe 
that  we  are  nearer  the  truth,  and  nearer  his  own  con- 
ception of  himseK,  if  we  remember  him  most  for  the 
eagerness  and  the  pointedness  with  which  he  reverted 
to  primary  data. 

Who  among  his  students  and  readers  can  have 
failed  to  be  impressed  by  his  almost  constant  warn- 
ings against  "merely  verbal  thinking,"  the  "fallacy  of 
the  universal,"  "logomachies"  or  "logic-chopping," 
and  "taking  the  order  of  thought  for  the  order  of 


THE  EMPIRICAL  FACTOR  19 

reality"?  He  who  never  tired  of  dialectical  contest 
nevertheless  made  "the  field  of  life  and  action"  his 
supreme  court  of  appeal  as  against  "the  arid  wastes 
of  formal  logic." 

In  the  words  last  quoted  there  is  reflected  a  second 
persistent  tendency,  namely,  the  ethical  valuation  of 
all  experience.     If,   now,   we  contemplate  these  two 
habits  together — the  empirical  and  the  valuational — 
we  shall  be  able  to  see  that  he  was  working  upon,  or  at 
least  toward,  certain  of  the  problems  that  have  taken 
acute  forms  among  us  since  his  own  thinking  reached 
its  maturity.    If  he  did  not  enter  the  field  of  the  psy- 
chology of  religion  in  any  technical  manner,  he  was 
unquestionably  moving  toward  it.     If  his  psychology 
was  restricted  to  structural  concepts,   and  was  one- 
sidedly  a  psychology  of  knowledge  in  the  logical  sense, 
nevertheless  his  emphasis  upon  "life  and  action"  im- 
plied a  correlative  functional  point  of  view.     If  he 
never  fully  appreciated  what  one  may  call  the  his- 
torical inevitableness  of  pragmatism,  yet  he  himself 
helped  prepare  the  way  for  it!    Finally,  if  he  did  not 
apprehend   the  depth   of   the   social  factor  in   mind, 
morals,  and  religion,  nevertheless  his  metaphysics  of 
immanence  and  his  own  faith  in  a  loving  and  lovable 
God — these  two  taken  together — make  for  hospitality 
to   a  thoroughgoing  recognition   of  the   social   in   its 
primordialness  and  its  ultimateness. 

This  may  not  be  evident  to  one  who  approaches 
Bowne's  mind  through  his  metaphysics.  But  then 
metaphysics  was  to  him  not  the  main  thing,  but, 
rather,  a  sort  of  police  force  with  which  to  defend  the 
life  and  the  liberties  that  he  prized.  Turn  to  his  Prin- 
ciples  of  Ethics  and  you  will  see  that  he  does  not  intend 


20  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

to  deduce  the  moral  life  from  a  theory,  but  theory  from 
moral  life.  Note  that  he  consciously  endeavors  to 
unite  "the  intuitive  and  the  experience  school  of 
ethics."  His  affinity  with  utilitarianism  is  unmistak- 
ably close,  and  he  comes  as  near  to  an  evolutionary 
view  as  to  assert  that  duty  is  not  completely  de- 
terminate because  what  is  good  has  to  be  found  out  in 
part  by  this  historical  process. 

Or  turn  to  his  writings  that  deal  with  the  Christian 
life.  What  gems  of  practical  wisdom  they  are!  And 
they  are  gems,  not  because  they  are  deductions  from 
his  metaphysics,  not  because  they  are  compacted  sys- 
tems, but  because  they  are  so  simply  and  directly 
objective.  "We  must  fall  back  on  good  sense,  that 
general  sense  of  reality  and  soundness  without  which 
the  moral  life  becomes  a  series  of  snares  and  loses 
itself  in  silliness  and  fanaticism.  We  must  point  out 
that  the  essence  of  religion  lies  in  the  filial  spirit,  in 
the  desire  to  serve  and  please  God;  and  then  we  must 
point  out  that  our  all-inclusive  religious  duty  is  to 
offer  up  the  daily  life  pervaded  and  sanctified  by  the 
filial  spirit,  as  our  spiritual  service  and  worship  of 
God"  {The  Christian  Life,  New  York,  1899,  p.  106). 

He  was  probably  quite  aware  of  the  fundamentally 
empirical  quality  of  his  own  primary  procedures.  His 
dialectic  was  consciously  secondary  and  defensive — 
one  might  say  disinfecting.  It  did  not  profess  to  dis- 
cover or  demonstrate  the  real,  but  only  to  remove 
obstacles  from  the  real  and  from  the  perception  of  it  as 
real.  We  are  to  find  and  know  reality  by  action  and  in- 
teraction, by  giving  play  to  our  sense  of  need,  by  contem- 
plating historical  developments  and  judging  values;  by 
revising  thought  and  conduct  and  trying  again. 


THE  EMPIRICAL  FACTOR  21 

That  he  did  not  develop  this  view  of  experience,  but 
left  it  for  the  most  part  in  the  background  of  his 
reasonings,  is  to  be  accounted  for,  no  doubt,  by  the 
thought-situations  that  confronted  him  through  most 
of  his  career.  On  the  one  hand,  he  beheld  the  rule  of 
dogmatic  and  muddy  notions  of  evolution  and  of  nat- 
ural law,  with  an  almost  faddish  agnosticism  as  prime 
minister.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ecclesiastical  forces 
were  mostly  under  bondage  to  traditionalism  reen- 
forced  by  another  muddy  metaphysics.  His  calling 
was  to  help  clear  up  the  confusion.  This  he  did  in 
part  by  his  metaphysical  "reworking  of  concepts," 
but  also  in  important  part  by  direct  appeal  to  ex- 
perience. 


Ill 

NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE 

Edgar  Sheffield  Brightman 

Philosophers  do  not  agree.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  they  desire  to.  The  greatest  philosophers 
have  ever  been,  like  Royce,  "rebels,"  not  merely  against 
tradition  and  authority,  but  also  against  each  other. 
Meanwhile  the  innocent  bystander,  be  he  ordinary 
citizen  (the  target  of  every  philosopher's  shafts),  col- 
lege student,  or  man  of  science,  is  inclined  to  regard 
philosophy  in  general  as  fanciful  speculation,  and  turn 
skeptically  to  practical  facts.  But  this  skeptical  mood 
is  even  more  obviously  unsatisfactory  than  the  com- 
peting dogmatisms  of  philosophy.  No  human  being 
can  utterly  destroy  his  wonder  and  curiosity  in  the 
presence  of  the  mysteries  of  life;  and  everyone  must 
seek  and  find  for  himself  some  answer  to  the  ques- 
tions as  to  the  meaning  and  value  of  his  personality 
and  of  the  world  in  which  he  and  his  fellows  live. 
That  men  do  not  agree  in  their  answers  is  not  a  re- 
proach to  philosophy;  it  is  but  a  reflection  of  the 
infinite  inexhaustibility  of  life.  "After  all,"  as  Pro- 
fessor Bowne  one  day  remarked,  "it  is  not  so  desperate 
a  confession  to  make  that  the  divine  and  supreme 
Intelligence  is  to  some  extent  beyond  us — beyond  W5." 
Philosophy  should  not  be  blamed  if  the  most  interesting 
and  the  most  important  things  are  the  most  perplexing. 

Every  honest  attempt  at  philosophical  construction 
is  therefore  to  be  welcomed.     Such  an  attempt  may 

22 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    23 

contribute  real  insights;  or,  if  there  is  no  vision,  will 
at  least  serve  as  an  example  of  what  happens  in  the 
end  to  those  that  start  wrong.  Most  actual  systems 
are  a  blend  of  insights  and  wrong  starts.  It  would  be 
most  surprising  if  the  New  Realism,  perhaps  the  most 
talked  about  of  contemporary  systems  of  thought,  did 
not  consist  of  such  a  blending. 

The  New  Realism,  in  its  American  form,  came  be- 
fore the  public  as  an  organized  movement,  a  party  or 
creed,  in  1910,  when  a  group  of  philosophers  printed 
in  the  Journal  of  Philosophy ^  Psychology ^  and  Scientific 
Methods  what  they  called  "The  Program  and  First 
Platform  of  Six  Realists."  These  philosophers  were 
Professors  Holt,  Marvin,  Montague,  Perry,  Pitkin, 
and  Spaulding.^  In  1912  the  same  group  of  six  pub- 
lished a  volume  containing  an  introduction  to  which 
all  six  subscribed,  and  an  independent  essay  by  each 
member  of  the  group.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
movement  has  shown  unusual  vitality.  In  addition 
to  many  articles  contributed  to  the  periodicals,  the 
New  Realists  have  written  several  books  of  import- 
ance.^   Other  philosophers  have  indicated  a  greater  or 

'  The  New  Realism:  Cooperative  Studies  in  Philosophy.  By  E.  B. 
Holt  and  Others.  Published  by  The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York, 
1912.  Reprinted  by  permission.  See  references  in  text  below;  foot- 
notes 5,  9,  10,  12,  etc. 

^  R.  B.  Perry,  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies.  Longmans,  Green 
&  Co.,  New  York,  1912;  rev.  ed.,  1916.  (Hereafter  referred  to  as 
P.  P.  T.) 

R.  B.  Perry,  Present  Conflict  of  Ideals.  Longmans,  Green  &  Co., 
New  York.  1918.     (Hereafter  referred  to  as  P.  C.  I.) 

W.  T.  Marvin,  A  First  Book  in  Metaphysics.  The  Macmillan  Com- 
pany, New  York,  1912. 

W.  T.  Marvin,  The  History  of  European  Philosophy.  The  Macmillan 
Company,  New  York,  1917. 

E.  B.  Holt,  The  Concept  of  Consciousness.  G.  Allen  &  Co.,  London, 
1914. 

E.  G.  Spaulding,  The  New  Rationalism.  Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  New 
York,  1918.     (Hereafter  referred  to  as  N.  Ra.) 


24  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

less  degree  of  agreement  with  the  views  of  the  six, 
notably  McGilvary,  Woodbridge,  and  Fullerton.  If 
we  look  abroad,  we  find  a  similar  and  older  school  in 
England,  headed  by  Bertrand  Russell,  the  great 
mathematician.  This  school,  holding  numerous  tenets 
in  common  with  American  Realism,  along  with  sev- 
eral characteristic  differences,  and  exerting  a  strong 
influence  on  it,  will  be  left  out  of  account  in  the  present 
study.  It  will  be  our  purpose  to  examine  and  criticize 
the  most  important  utterances  of  the  American  real- 
ists regarding  one  of  the  most  fundamental  philosophi- 
cal problems,  if  not  the  most  fundamental,  the 
problem  of  value.  These  utterances  are  found  chiefly 
in  the  writings  of  Professors  Perry  and  Spaulding,  and 
we  shall  therefore  confine  ourselves  chiefly  to  a  study 
of  these  two  men. 

What  is  the  problem  of  value?  That,  we  may  reply, 
is  the  problem.  But  at  least  we  may  assert  that  there 
is  such  a  problem,  unless  the  only  interest  of  the  human 
mind  is  that  in  having  no  interest,  so  that  it  regards 
all  knowledge  as  equally  important  and  all  ends  of 
conduct  as  equally  good.  There  is  an  extreme  of  the 
intellectualistic  temper  that  appears  not  merely  to 
abstract  from,  but  even  to  deny  the  validity  of,  value 
distinctions  in  knowledge.  If  one  feels  moved  to 
count  the  grains  of  sand  at  Nantasket  Beach,  or  meas- 
ure with  a  footrule  the  inches  from  Hongkong  to  Rio 
Janeiro,  well  and  good.  But  human  nature  turns,  and 
philosophy  herself  rebels  against  that  type  of  trivial 
objectivity,  inane  disinterestedness.  Prior,  then,  to 
the  performing  of  any  task,  theoretical  or  practical,  is 
the  insistent  but  baffling  question,  Is  this  task  worth 
undertaking — is  it  of  value  .^ 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    25 

The  question  is  baffling  for  two  reasons.  First,  be- 
cause it  is  often  impossible  to  know  whether  a  thing 
is  worth  doing  until  it  has  been  done,  not  once  merely, 
but  many  times;  secondly,  it  is  baffling  because  it  is 
so  difficult  to  define  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that 
a  task  is  worth  undertaking.  What  makes  a  task 
worthy,  a  goal  valuable?  What  is  worth,  or  value? 
To  no  more  important  problem  can  a  philosopher  ad- 
dress himself. 

The  various  possible  solutions  to  the  problem  may 
be  classified  from  numerous  points  of  view,  according 
to  the  interest  of  the  classifier.  A  classification  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  relation  of  value  to  conscious- 
ness seems  most  promising  for  present  purposes.  Such 
classification  will  be  in  a  sense  arbitrary  in  that  it 
does  not  attempt  to  group  actually  existing,  or  even 
historical,  theories  of  value.  It  is,  rather,  a  logical 
division  of  the  subject  with  a  view  to  showing  the 
possible  relations  of  theory  of  value  to  the  principle 
of  personality.^ 

Any  theory,  then,  must  regard  value  as  either  extra- 
mental  in  its  nature,  or  as  some  activity  or  attribute 
of  consciousness.  For  short,  we  may  speak  of  the 
"extra-mental"  and  the  "consciousness"  theories.  By 
the  extra-mental  theory  is  meant  one  that  regards 
value  as  an  entity  that  exists  or  subsists  independ- 
ently of  any  consciousness  of  it.  Plato's  theory  of 
ideas,  as  generally  interpreted,  would  be  an  illustration 
of  this  sort  of  theory.  By  a  consciousness  theory 
would  be  meant  any  theory  that  makes  value  de- 
pendent   on   consciousness.      But   here   we   find   that 

^  For  an  illuminating  classification  of  the  former  type,  see  Professor 
Perry's  article,  "The  Definition  of  Value,"  Jour.  Phil.,  11  (1914), 
pp.  141-162. 


26  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

notions  as  to  what  consciousness  is,  and  what  sort  of 
relation  to  or  dependence  on  it  constitutes  value  are 
widely  diverse.  Let  us  therefore  subdivide  the  con- 
sciousness theories  into  subjective  and  objective — a 
distinction  ignored  by  the  Neo-Realists.  A  subjective 
theory  makes  the  value  depend  entirely  on  and  con- 
sist of  our  individual,  human  consciousness  of  it. 
Justice,  on  such  a  theory,  has  value  because,  and  in 
so  far  as,  I  value  it.  If  I  ceased  to  prize  it,  I  could 
rightly  say  that  it  had  no  value.  My  neighbor,  who 
still  honors  it,  can  with  equal  justification  say  that  it 
has  value.  Value,  on  a  simon-pure  subjectivist  theory, 
is  as  local  and  purely  personal  as  toothache.  An  ob- 
jective consciousness  theory  asserts  that,  while  value 
must  be  thought  of  as  dependent  on  consciousness  for 
its  quality  as  value,  yet  our  valuations  point  to  an 
objectively  real  world  of  values,  which  our  subjective 
valuations  are  seeking  to  know,  but  which  itself  can 
only  be  thought  of  as  a  realm  of  consciousness.  A 
pair  of  sub-subdivisions,  and  we  have  done  with  "logic- 
chopping."  Each  type  of  consciousness  theory  may 
assume  either  an  impersonal  or  a  personal  form,  the 
term  "personal"  being  used  as  Professor  Bowne  used 
it,  to  characterize  the  unitary  self.  An  impersonal, 
subjective,  consciousness  finds  value  to  consist  in  con- 
sciousness, truly,  but  regards  the  self  as  a  complex 
product  of  impersonal  elements,  and  denies  that  per- 
sonality is  ultimate.  Here  would  belong  any  em- 
piricist theory  of  Hume's  type.  A  personal,  subjective, 
consciousness  theory  views  value  as  consisting  in  con- 
sciousness, regarded  as  belonging  to  a  unitary  per- 
sonality. Here  might  be  classified  theories  that  regard 
value  as  an  a  priori  law  of  the  activity  of  the  mind. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    27 

The  impersonal,  objective,  consciousness  theory  would 
be  illustrated  by  some  forms  of  absolute  idealism; 
whereas  the  personal,  objective,  consciousness  theory 
is  theistic  personalism.  It  is  obvious  that  the  terms 
"objective"  and  "impersonal"  also  apply  to  all  extra- 
mental  theories. 

Expressing  these  results  in  tabular  form,  we  have 
the  following: 

Theories  of  Value 

I.  Extra-mental  (impersonal  and  objective). 
II.  Consciousness. 

a.  Subjective. 

1.  Impersonal. 

2.  Personal. 

b.  Objective. 

1.  Impersonal. 

2.  Personal. 

It  is,  as  we  have  indicated,  the  purpose  of  the  pres- 
ent essay  to  formulate  and  criticize  the  theories  of 
value  held  by  Professors  Perry  and  Spaulding.  We 
are  concerned  with  Neo-Realism  in  general  only  in  so 
far  as  it  is  essential  to  an  understanding  of  the  theory 
of  value  held  by  these  two  men.  It  seems  desirable  to 
this  end  to  sketch  a  brief  outline  of  realistic  beliefs  as 
a  background  for  the  special  investigation.  The  sys- 
tem is  peculiarly  subtle,  abstract,  elusive,  and  revolu- 
tionary. Any  exposition  from  without  the  camp  is 
chargeable  with  bias  or  dullness  of  apprehension,  or 
both.  Braving  this  charge,  one  may  venture  the  as- 
sertion that  the  doctrine  of  epistemological  monism  is 
the  fundamental  tenet  of  the  school.  Those  unini- 
tiated into  New  Realism  have  generally  held,  following 


28  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Locke  and  Descartes,  that  we  have  ideas,  not  identi- 
cal with  objects,  but  somehow  "representing,"  or 
"knowing,"  or  "describing,"  or  "referring  to"  the 
objects;  and  that  ideas  present  to  consciousness  are 
all  that  we  immediately  possess.  The  idea  of  a  house 
and  the  house  itself  are  two  numerically  distinct  facts 
in  the  universe;  my  idea  is  not  the  house  itself  or  any 
part  of  it.  This  common  view  is  called  epistemologi- 
cal  dualism,  or  dualistic  realism — the  theory  that 
there  are  two  entities  essential  to  every  case  of  knowl- 
edge, the  idea  of  the  object  and  the  object  itself.  The 
idea  is  ours,  present  and  possessed;  the  object  is  merely 
"meant"  or  "referred  to"  by  the  idea.  New  Realism 
regards  this  dualism  as  a  heresy,  foisted  on  an  innocent 
public  by  seventeenth-century  philosophy.  The  "true" 
epistemological  monism  is  a  return  to  "naive  realism," 
the  theory  that  "objects  are  not  represented  in  con- 
sciousness by  ideas;  they  are  themselves  directly 
presented."  What  we  call  consciousness  consists  of 
relations  among  entities  which  are  themselves  not 
conscious, — the  "relational  theory  of  consciousness." 
Ultimately  reality  is  made  up  of  "neutral  entities," 
neither  mental  nor  physical,  but  capable  of  being  so 
related  as  to  form  either  mental  or  physical  complexes. 
A  complex  of  such  entities  (which  we  call  an  object) 
in  certain  relations  to  another  complex  (which  we  call 
a  human  organism)  is  knowledge.  Objects  are  what 
they  are  entirely  independent  of  whether  anyone 
"knows"  them  or  not;  the  self  is  not  only  not  con- 
stitutive of  knowledge,  but  it — or  all  there  is  left  of  it 
for  New  Realism — is  epistemologically  irrelevant  and 
otiose,  a  mere  "predicament."  These  results  are  at- 
tained by  the  employment  of  the  method  of  analysis. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    29 

whereby,  according  to  the  principles  of  mathematical 
logic,  the  universe  is  reduced  to  terms  and  relations, 
of  various  types.  Since  there  is  no  one  common  term 
or  relation  to  which  all  are  reduced,  the  theory  is  rather 
strongly  inclined  to  pluralism.  Further,  since  the  ulti- 
mate terms  are  conceived  as  independent  of  their 
relations,  and  capable  of  entering  unchanged  into 
many  different  relations,  it  adopts  the  external  theory 
of  relations. 

Such  are  the  bare  outlines  of  the  New  Realism.  At 
first  sight,  a  theory  so  arid  and  abstract,  so  frankly 
contrary  to  the  results  of  the  history  of  philosophy, 
avowed  by  Professor  Perry  to  be  a  philosophy  of  dis- 
illusionment, would  hardly  seem  promising.  How, 
then,  can  its  rise  and  popularity  be  accounted  for.? 
Several  items  enter  into  the  answer  to  this  question. 
Its  mathematical  method  and  genius  ally  it  with  the 
natural  sciences,  which  are  to-day  so  vigorous  and  in- 
fluential. Its  advocates  are  characterized  by  an 
earnest  desire  to  promote  cooperation  and  discussion 
in  philosophy,  and  to  define  philosophical  problems 
with  scientific  accuracy;  and  they  have  dignified  their 
position  by  seriously  relating  it  to  all  the  major  prob- 
lems of  philosophy  and  life.  Professors  Perry  and 
Spaulding  even  teach  that  this  scientific  philosophy  is 
theistic,^  offering  a  new  and  positive  solution  to  the 
problems  of  philosophy  of  religion.  This  avowal  of 
theism,  a  distinctly  unfashionable  belief  among  con- 
temporary philosophers,  is  a  bold  and  surprising  ele- 
ment in  Neo-Realism. 

Let  us  now  examine  Professor  Perry's  theory  of 
value.     He  has  made  it  very  easy  for  us  to  classify 

*  P.  C.  I.,  p.  379;  N.'Ra.,  p.  520. 


30  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

him  under  one  of  our  rubrics.  Since  he  holds  that 
"value  is  dependent  on  consciousness,"^  specifically  on 
interest  (for  the  unitary  self  of  personalism  is  to  him, 
discoverer  of  the  "ego-centric  predicament,"  anathema) 
his  seems  obviously  to  be  what  we  have  called  an 
impersonal,  subjective,  consciousness  theory  of  value. 
Herewith  a  veto  is  interposed  on  an  immediate  inves- 
tigation of  Professor  Perry's  theory  of  value;  for  if 
value  be  dependent  on  consciousness,  it  becomes  of 
prime  importance  to  know  what  is  meant  by  con- 
sciousness. 

If  philosophy  and  psychology  up  to  recent  times 
have  agreed  on  anything,  it  has  been  with  reference 
to  certain  facts  about  consciousness,  such  as,  that  it 
is  immediately  felt,  is  indefinable,  and  is  unique,  that 
is,  is  entirely  different  in  kind  from  all  of  its  "objects," 
especially  its  "material"  objects.  Within  this  field  of 
agreement  there  have  been  sharp  differences.  The 
associationalists  have  regarded  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness as  a  series  of  essentially  passive  awarenesses, 
which  combine  and  separate  much  as  blocks  may  be 
built  up  into  toy  mansions  by  a  small  boy,  save  that 
in  this  case  the  boy  himself  was  explained  in  terms  of 
the  blocks,  and  the  blocks  had  an  annoying  way  of 
disappearing.  The  opposing  camp  we  may  call  per- 
sonalists.  Neglecting  many  shades  of  variation  in 
opinion,  we  may  say  that  personalism  has  held  that 
consciousness  was  essentially  active  self -consciousness; 
and  that  the  self,  as  unitary  agent,  was  the  basal  fact 
of  experience,  making  association  possible,  somehow 
transcending  space  and  time,  and  rendering  moral  obli- 
gation intelligible.     In  lowest  terms,  according  to  the 

^  The  New  Realism,  p.  140. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    31 

one  view,  consciousness  is  fundamentally  passive 
awareness  of  sense  qualities;  according  to  the  other, 
it  is  a  knowing,  willing,  feeling  agent. 

Both  of  these  traditional  views  are  the  object  of 
neo-realistic  attack.  Professor  Perry  asserts  that  "the 
nature  of  mental  action  is  discoverable  neither  by  an 
analysis  of  mental  contents  nor  by  self -intuition:"^ 
for  him,  then,  consciousness  is  neither  awareness  nor 
agency. 

To  do  business  without  a  self  is  by  no  means  un- 
heard-of in  philosophy  and  psychology.  But  Profes- 
sor Perry  goes  much  further.  Conspicuous  English 
reahsts,  like  G.  E.  Moore  and  B.  Russell,  find  it  in 
their  hearts  to  recognize  consciousness,  by  admitting 
that  awareness  is  "a  distinct  and  unique  relation." 
But  it  puzzles  Professor  Perry  (as  it  had  puzzled 
James)  to  understand  just  what  this  awareness  is, 
since  on  Moore's  confession  it  is  "of  such  a  nature 
that  its  object,  when  we  are  aware  of  it,  is  precisely 
what  it  would  be,  if  one  were  not  aware."  If  one,  so 
to  speak,  turns  out  the  gas  of  awareness,  it  leaves 
everything  just  as  it  was,  on  its  good  behavior.  So 
that,  if  such  awareness  is  all  there  is  to  consciousness, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  Professor  Perry  is  willing  to 
allow  "Mr.  Moore's  distinction  to  lapse."^  The  ob- 
jects are  there  all  the  time.  The  awareness  makes 
no  difference.  Hence  awareness  has  no  function  or 
meaning.    Such  seems  to  be  his  thought. 

It  would  be  grossly  unfair  to  infer  from  this  that  the 
terms  "consciousness"  and  "personality"  in  Professor 
Perry's  opinion  refer  to  nothing  whatsoever.     But  he 

«  P.  P.  T.,  p.  283. 

^  P.  P.  T..  pp.  321-322. 


32  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

does  mean  to  teach  that  traditional  conceptions  of 
consciousness  are  based  on  a  radically  false  founda- 
tion, namely,  faith  in  the  method  of  introspection.  It 
has  for  centuries  been  assumed  that  I,  and  I  alone,  am 
directly  conscious  of  my  own  experiences.  I  may  give 
another  person  a  piece  of  bread  or  a  piece  of  land;  but 
to  give  him  a  piece  of  my  mind  has  seemed  to  be  only 
metaphorically  possible.  No  one,  so  it  has  been 
thought,  can  experience  my  neuralgia,  or  my  love,  or 
my  ideas,  or  even  my  sense  perceptions.  Others  may, 
indeed,  on  occasion  diagnose  my  neuralgia,  respond  to 
my  love,  understand  my  ideas,  or  perceive  the  same 
sense  object;  but  in  so  doing  they  refer  to  the  objects 
which  my  experience  also  refers  to  without  actually 
possessing  my  experience  itself.  Yes,  even  my  most 
social  experiences  are  inalienably  mine.  "The  monads 
have  no  windows." 

This  traditional  view  has  been  based,  as  we  said,  on 
the  verdict  of  introspection,  that  I  am  aware  of  my 
own  consciousness;  and  on  the  belief  that  I  am  not 
aware  of  anyone  else's  consciousness,  nor  is  anyone 
else  of  mine,  in  the  same  sense  as  I  am  of  my  own. 
Introspection  is  inferred  to  be  the  only  method  of 
knowing  consciousness  immediately:  any  knowledge  of 
consciousness  other  than  by  introspection  is  mediate 
and  inferred,  not  immediately  given.  The  New  Real- 
ism, according  to  Professor  Perry,  seems  to  admit  the 
datum,  that  we  do  actually  introspect,  and  to  accept 
qualifiedly  the  belief  that  no  one  else  can  be  conscious 
of  my  consciousness  as  I  am;  but  to  reject  entirely  the 
inference  that  introspection  is  the  only  or  even  the 
best  method  of  knowing  consciousness  directly.  The 
supposed  "unique  accessibility  of  mind  to  itself"  fun- 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    33 

damental  to  the  consciousness  view  is  manifestly  even 
more  vital  to  personalism.  Here  realism  has  an  issue, 
which  Perry  formulates  with  boldness. 

He  admits  "that  in  certain  respects  and  under  cer- 
tain circumstances,  a  mind  can  only  with  great  diffi- 
culty be  known  by  another  mind."^  But  if  mind  be 
regarded  as  belonging  to  "that  same  open  field  of 
experience  wherein  all  other  objects  lie,"  and  if  ideas 
be  objects  in  this  sense,  then  there  is  indeed  no  reason 
why  two  people  should  not  have  literally  the  same 
idea,  precisely  as  two  may  share  the  same  friend,  or 
the  same  home.  That  is  to  say.  Professor  Perry's 
argument  at  bottom  means  that  if  you  will  grant  that 
ideas  possess  the  properties,  or  certain  of  the  proper- 
ties, of  physical  objects,  it  follows  that  the  inaccessi- 
bility of  my  ideas  to  you  has  no  absolute  basis.  It  is 
true  that  any  given  physical  object,  such  as  the  varie- 
gated colors  of  the  kaleidoscope,  may  perhaps  be 
accessible  to  observation  only  from  a  specific  point  of 
view  (in  this  case,  the  proper  end  of  the  kaleidoscope). 
So  too  conversation  in  San  Francisco  is  inaccessible  to 
me  in  Boston,  unless  I  am  listening  at  the  telephone. 
The  interior  of  the  earth  or  of  the  sun  would  be  even 
more  inaccessible.  In  a  similar  manner,  processes 
occurring  within  one's  own  body  cannot  normally  be 
observed  by  others.  But  all  physical  facts  are  inher- 
ently observable  by  more  than  one  person;  and  if 
ideas  are  of  the  nature  of  the  physical,  they  too  can 
be  seen,  felt,  shared.  This,  in  rough  paraphrase, 
seems  to  be  Professor  Perry's  argument. 

Let  us  look  around  for  a  moment  in  the  world  of 


8  Art.,  "The  Hiddenness  of  Mind,"  Jour.  Phil.,  6  (1909),  p.  30,  etc. 
Compare  P.  P.  T.,  p.  287,  and  the  context. 


34  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

realistic  mind.  We  have  been  told  to  abandon  the 
introspective  method,  and  even  the  very  term  "aware- 
ness." Mind  appears  to  become  a  physical  object,  or 
a  complex  of  physical  objects  in  certain  relations. 
This  situation  tempts  one  to  raise  questions  as  to  the 
unity  and  identity  of  personality,  the  possibility  of 
error  (regarding  which,  in  particular,  the  whole  realis- 
tic school  has  had  a  very  hard  time),  the  meaning  of 
moral  obligation,  and  other  matters.  But  instead  of 
raising  difficulties,  it  would  be  better  for  us  to  con- 
tinue observations. 

However  this  view  may  be  related  to  the  history  of 
philosophy,  it  is  clear  that  it  is  thoroughly  consistent 
with  contemporary  behaviorism  in  psychology.  Of  the 
alliance  between  realism  and  behaviorism,  Professor 
Perry  is  aware.  American  realists,  he  tells  us,  are  in 
accord  with  behaviorism  (an  assertion  that  is  hardly 
consistent  with  Professor  Montague's  position!),  the 
theory  that  means  by  mind  "only  the  peculiar  way  in 
which  a  living  organism  endowed  with  a  central 
nervous  system  behaves."^  Taken  literally,  this  means 
that  mind  is  certain  peculiarly  organized  motions  of 
"matter"  in  space,  and  is  nothing  else.  The  old  dis- 
tinction of  subject  and  object  is  reinterpreted.  The 
subject  is  the  activity  of  the  organism,  the  object  or 
content  is  the  parts  of  the  environment  "selected"  by 
that  organic  activity. ^° 

Behaviorism  has  something  in  its  favor,  else  it  would 
not  be  so  widely  held.  It  gives  to  psychology  a  sub- 
ject matter  open  to  general  observation.     It  removes 

'  P.  C.  I.,  p.  378.  For  Professor  Montague's  criticisms,  see  The 
New  Realism,  pp.  270-272. 

10  The  New  Realism,  pp.  475f.:  P.  P.  T.,  pp.  299.  300,  323,  etc.; 
P.  C.  /.,  p.  377. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    35 

certain  puzzles  inherent  in  traditional  dualism.  It 
employs  the  categories  of  biological  science,  which  is 
now  in  the  ascendency.  Objections  to  behaviorism 
need  not  be  urged  at  this  point.  But  it  is  important 
to  emphasize  the  sharp  line  of  distinction  that  must 
be  drawn  between  extreme  behaviorists  and  believers 
in  consciousness.  The  failure  to  be  conscious  of  the 
distinction  is  productive  of  much  confusion  in  recent 
discussions.  Behaviorism  has  rendered  discussion  pecu- 
liarly difficult;  for  whatever  a  behaviorist  says  must 
be  taken  in  a  Pickwickian  sense.  He  uses  the  lan- 
guage of  consciousness,  but  refers  to  the  objects  of 
biology.  If  his  theory  is  correct,  he  is,  of  course,  justi- 
fied. But,  justified  or  not,  if  he  means  by  desire,  for 
instance,  a  certain  tendency  or  group  of  tendencies  of 
a  physical  object,  my  body,  to  move  in  a  particular 
way,  he  cannot  intelligibly  use  the  term  in  conversa- 
tion with  one  who  regards  it  as  meaning  conative 
consciousness.  The  two  persons  would  simply  talk 
past  each  other.  It  must  gloomily  be  confessed  that 
most  contemporary  philosophical  discussion  consists  of 
a  series  of  mutual  misunderstandings;  it  is  all  but 
unprecedented  to  find  a  philosopher  admitting  that 
his  critic  has  understood  him.  And  lo! — perhaps  we 
are  even  now  misunderstanding  Professor  Perry  and 
behaviorism. 

If,  despite  the  danger  of  that  misunderstanding,  we 
were  to  characterize  Professor  Perry's  account  of  con- 
sciousness in  the  light  of  the  data  before  us,  it  would 
be  difficult  to  avoid  regarding  his  behaviorism  as  an 
instance  of  philosophical  naturalism.  "Mental  action 
is  a  property  of  the  physical  organism."  Mental  con- 
tents are  certain  selected  aspects  of  physical  nature. 


36  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

related  according  to  a  peculiar  pattern,  it  is  true;  but 
they  are  "fragments  of  nature"  that  "find  their  way 
into  my  mind."^^  More  naturaHstic  still  is  the  allusion 
to  "minds  and  other  bodily  things";  and  the  assertion 
that  the  independence  of  consciousness  "of  another 
onlooking  self  is  only  a  special  case  of  the  independ- 
ence of  physical  events  on  the  observation  of  them."^^ 
When  mind  is  thus  treated  as  a  bodily  thing  or  a 
physical  event,  the  logic  of  behaviorism  is  carried  out 
into  materialistic  naturalism. 

We  are  purposely  emphasizing  one  current  in  Pro- 
fessor Perry's  thinking,  without  doing  full  justice  to 
all  that  he  said.  It  is  our  present  aim  to  show  that 
the  naturalistic  current  is  a  very  powerful  one  in  his 
view  of  consciousness.  This  becomes  increasingly 
clear  if  we  observe  his  criticism  of  "the  relational 
theory  of  consciousness,"  which  means,  as  Wood- 
bridge  put  it,  that  "consciousness  is  only  a  form  of 
the  connection  of  objects. "^^  Professor  Perry  feels  a 
certain  inadequacy  in  this  theory.  But  it  seems  to 
me  that  his  objection  is  not  to  the  naturalism  of  Wood- 
bridge's  theory,  but  rather  to  its  lack  of  definiteness. 
For  he  complains  merely  that  the  relational  theory 
fails  to  show  what  kind  of  connection  among  objects 
characterizes  consciousness.  He  does  not  overlook  the 
idealistic  answer  that  reference  to  a  self  or  self- 
intuition  is  the  only  key  to  the  difficulty  (whereby 
also  the  naturalistic  interpretation  of  the  objects  is 
denied);  but  Hume  and  Bradley  satisfy  him  that  the 
experience  of  self-activity  can  be  analyzed  into  ele- 

"  P.  P.  T.,  pp.  298,  277. 
"  P.  P.  T.,  p.  301;   The  New  Realism,  p.  147. 

13  P.  P.  T.,  p.  278.  For  the  following  argument,  compare  pp.  278- 
280. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    37 

ments,  and  hence  is  not  ultimate.  Professor  Perry  is 
also  dissatisfied  with  the  answer  made  famous  by 
James,  to  the  effect  that  self  or  "spiritual  activity"  is 
"the  feeling  of  some  bodily  process,  for  the  most  part 
taking  place  within  the  head";  for  he  justly  fails  to 
see  how  a  process  within  the  head  could  function  as  a 
unity  of  consciousness  that  should  weld  together  pro- 
cesses within  the  head  and  movements  of  bodies  out- 
side the  head.^^  Consciousness  of  those  processes  and 
of  those  movements  is  contents  that  need  still  to  be 
unified.  This  insight  is  one  which  personalism  has 
found  conclusive  in  favor  of  the  self. 

But  Professor  Perry's  own  solution  remains  true  to 
behaviorism.  Question:  what  is  the  unity  of  con- 
sciousness, the  secret  of  mental  action?  Answer:  it  is 
not  a  conscious  self  that  acts,  nor  is  it  the  feeling  of 
"intra-cephalic  movements";  but  it  is  "bodily  action 
itself,"^^  to  which  the  question  of  whether  it  is  "felt" 
or  not  is  quite  accidental  and  indifferent.  "Feeling" 
still  remains,  as  the  last  echo  of  a  dying  self,  but  it 
doesn't  explain  anything,  is  utterly  unimportant  and 
irrelevant  to  our  understanding  of  mental  unity.  The 
mental  unity  in  listening  (to  use  Professor  Perry's 
illustration)  is  not  a  unity  of  consciousness,  but  a 
unity  of  bodily  action,  of  "operation  of  a  nervous 
system."  To  this  theory  our  author  gives  the  name  of 
"the  immanence  of  consciousness."  His  explanation 
of  that  term  strikes  one  as  perhaps  too  metaphorical 
to  be  exact.  It  is,  he  tells  us,  the  theory  that  "mind 
and  the  surrounding  world  interpenetrate  and  overlap 
as   the   university    interpenetrates   and    overlaps   the 


"  P.  P.  T..  p.  284. 
»5  P.  P.  T..  p.  285. 


38  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

other  systems  and  groupings  from  which  its  com- 
ponents are  drawn. "^^  How  else  than  physically,  we 
may  inquire,  does  this  occur?  How  can  one,  in  short, 
with  the  best  will  in  the  world,  avoid  regarding  this 
view  as  materialistic  naturalism? 

But,  as  above  stated,  we  have  hitherto  been  present- 
ing only  one  side  of  Professor  Perry's  theory  of  con- 
sciousness. If  we  turn  to  another  side  of  his  thought, 
we  are  struck  with  his  sincere  refusal  to  be  classified 
as  a  naturalist.  His  first  book^^  may  be  described  as 
an  avowed  polemic  against  naturalism,  a  polemic 
which  reappears  in  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies 
and  Present  Conflict  of  Ideals.  It  is  apparently 
grounded  in  the  fact  that  Professor  Perry  cherishes 
the  moral  and  religious  values  of  life,  whereas  nat- 
uralism is  indifferent  to  value,  is  "equivalent  to  the 
denial  of  optimistic  religion.  .  .  .  Life  is  impotent, 
and  the  aspirations  and  hopes  to  which  it  gives  rise 
are  vain."^^  In  rejecting  naturalism  he  would  by  no 
means  affirm  all  that  "optimistic  religion"  has  affirmed. 
But  he  is  concerned  to  have  his  realism  appear  as 
"theistic  and  melioristic." 

It  would  almost  seem  that  Professor  Perry's  reason 
demands  naturalism,  his  heart  religion  and  value.  But 
this  would  not  do  him  justice.  Not  only  in  his  direct 
criticisms  of  naturalism,  but  also  in  numerous  signifi- 
cant admissions  with  reference  to  his  own  (naturalis- 
tic) theory  of  consciousness  does  it  appear  that  there 
are  purely  intellectual  difficulties  in  naturalism.  He 
declines   to   accept   the   naturalistic   account   as   the 

"  P.  C.  I.,  pp.  376-377. 

"  The  Approach  to  Philosophy.    Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York, 
1905.     Compare  p.  ix. 
"  P.  P.  T.,  p.  85. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    39 

whole  truth;  processes  do,  it  is  true,  obey  mechanical 
laws,  he  tells  us,  but  these  identical  processes  also 
obey  laws  of  value,  of  "interest,"  as  he  calls  it. 
"Things  take  place  because  of  the  good  they  promote."^^ 
Whether  this  is  logically  a  rejection  of  naturalism  will 
depend  on  whether  he  supplies  a  nonnaturalistic  defi- 
nition of  value.  Meanwhile  let  us  call  attention  to 
certain  respects  in  which  he  criticizes  or  modifies 
naturalism. 

Despite  his  behaviorism,  he  holds  that  the  contents 
of  consciousness  are  not  confined  to  the  physical 
environment.  Not  only  remote^"  regions  of  space  and 
time,  but  also  abstractions  and  principles  are  included 
in  these  contents.  The  extent  to  which  this  goes 
beyond  naturalism  is  debatable.  Any  theory  must, 
of  course,  admit  the  obvious  fact  of  knowledge  of  the 
remote  in  space  and  time.  The  more  important  ques- 
tion would  then  be.  What  abstractions  and  principles 
are  real?  Professor  Perry's  answer  seems  to  be,  Only 
the  abstractions  of  mathematics  and  logic,  that  is, 
"Only  the  mathematical  and  logical  part  of  Platonic 
realism. "2^  This  he  regards  as  suflScient  to  contradict 
materialistic  metaphysics.  But  since  he  admits  that 
it  is  equally  contradictory  to  idealism,  and  since  the 
real  principles  which  he  recognizes  are  precisely  those 
of  significance  to  naturalism,  its  fundamental  cate- 
gories, this  point  cannot  be  regarded  as  carrying  him 
very  far  from  naturalism. 

The  doctrine  of  "neutral  entities"  is  a  more  thor- 
oughgoing  attempt   to   avoid    naturalism    in   all   its 


"  P.  P.  T.,  p.  342. 
20  p.  p.  T.,  p.  304. 
"  p.  C.  I.,  p.  371,  373. 


40  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

forms  (materialistic,  agnostic,  positivistic) .  This  doc- 
trine may  be  summarized  as  follows:  If  I  analyze 
"consciousness"  into  elements  (such  as  the  quality 
"blue,"  or  hardness,  or  number),  I  find  that  I  ascribe 
these  same  elements  to  physical  nature,  and  to  other 
minds.  The  elements  of  which  the  universe  is  made 
up  are  themselves  neither  distinctively  "physical"  nor 
distinctively  "mental"  ;^^  they  are  "neutral."  This 
theory  does,  it  is  true,  avoid  naturalism;  it  is  dog- 
matic, not  agnostic;  metaphysical,  not  positivistic  (al- 
though not  without  affinity  with  positivism,  especially 
in  the  denial  of  "substance");  and  neutral,  not  ma- 
terialistic. It  attains  this  result  by  a  double  abstrac- 
tion; for  it  abstracts  not  merely  from  reference  to  a 
subject,  but  also  from  reference  to  an  object.  It 
asserts  "the  indifference  of  the  terms  of  experience 
not  only  to  their  subjective  relations,  but  to  their 
physical  relations  as  well."^^  In  themselves,  the  neu- 
tral entities  have  no  "home,"  are  not  "anywhere." 
Each  entity  apparently  exists  as  it  is,  eternally  un- 
changeable, with  a  nature  independent  of  and  unaf- 
fected by  the  relations  into  which  it  may  enter.  This 
perhaps  avoids  some  of  the  difficulties  of  naturalism; 
but  whatever  we  may  say  of  the  logic  by  which  this 
new  mind-stuff  (which  is  neither  mind  nor  stuff,  but 
capable  of  becoming  both)  is  arrived  at,  we  must  say 
of  the  entities  themselves  that  they  defy  conception 
in  their  unrelated,  individual  isolation.  Even  Pro- 
fessor Perry  admits  that  the  minimum  cognoscibile  may 
be  a  complex,^^  that  we  cannot  know  any  entity  by 


22  p.  p.  T.,  p.  277. 

23  p.  p.  T.,  p.  316.    Compare  The  New  Realism,  pp.  128,  129. 

24  The  New  Realism,  p.  127. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    41 

itself,  but  only  in  relations.  The  ultimate  neutral 
terms  cannot  then  be  conceived  as  they  "really"  are — 
homeless,  unrelated,  unchangeable.  Is  this  not  ground 
for  suspecting  that  we  must  regard  them  as  abstrac- 
tions rather  than  as  reality.'*  To  attribute  ontological 
reality  to  every  abstraction  arrived  at  by  logical  analy- 
sis is  not  merely  a  return  to  scholasticism,  as  it  has 
been  called;  it  is  worse  than  scholasticism. 

It  must  be  granted,  however,  that  Professor  Perry's 
theory  of  neutral  entities  affords  foundation  for  a  very 
interesting  interpretation  of  his  theory  of  mind,  with 
reference  to  the  differences  between  "mind"  and  "mat- 
ter," as  they  are  commonly  called.  These  two  words 
point  to  different  groupings  of  "neutral  entities."  In 
these  different  groupings  or  relations  is  found  room 
for  many  of  the  traditional  differences  between  the 
two  realms;  nay,  to  the  "mind"-complex  are  attrib- 
uted so  many  powers  that  it  begins  to  look  almost 
like  personality.  "Where  my  mind  is  the  object  to 
be  known,"  we  are  told,  "I  can  embarrass  the  obser- 
ver, because  I  can  control  the  object.  I  can  even  make 
and  unmake  my  mind.  ...  I  may  accelerate  [my 
thoughts]  or  double  on  my  tracks  to  throw  you  off  the 
scent.  "-^  Such  self-control  and  self -activity  would 
seem  as  difficult  of  attainment  by  neutral  entities  as 
by  physical  objects;  they  would  seem  to  be  the  ulti- 
mates  of  self-experience. 

In  any  event,  the  same  Professor  Perry  who  a  few 
pages  back  appeared  as  an  exponent  of  naturalism,  is 
now  very  eager  to  avoid  that  appearance.  He  seeks 
explicitly  to  prove  that  consciousness  is  not  merely 


**  P.  P.  T.,  p.  291.     For  further  discussion  of  this  criticism,  see  Pro- 
fessor Lovejoy's  review.  Jour.  Phil.,  9  (1912),  pp.  680,  681. 


42  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

mechanical.  He  does  this  in  a  series  of  essays,  the 
most  important  of  which  is  entitled  "Docility  and 
Purpose."^^  The  problem  is  how,  on  behavioristic 
principles,  to  account  for  purpose,  as  it  is  expressed  in 
such  phrases  as  "in  order  to,"  "for  the  sake  of."  It 
is  noteworthy  with  what  tenacity  Professor  Perry 
holds  to  the  category  of  purpose,  which  is  Kar  ^^oxnv, 
the  category  of  personality.  Much  of  the  language 
used  by  behaviorists  to  express  that  category  is,  he 
concedes,  inadequate.  Purpose,  for  instance,  is  not 
mere  adaptation  (as  complementary  adjustment), 
which  "may  be  construed  as  complex  cases  of  autom- 
atism or  mechanism";  not,  then,  the  mere  fact  of 
adaptation,  but,  rather,  the  fact  that  "the  organism 
acquires  or  learns"  adjustments  presupposes  purpose; 
for  "the  response  is  selected  owing  to  its  complemen- 
tary character."^^  On  this  foundation  Professor  Perry 
seeks  to  build  up  an  account  of  purpose,  yet  without 
any  appeal  to  consciousness.  He  would  not  impute 
"causal  efficiency  to  mental  states";  he  does  not  find 
it  necessary  "to  believe  that  any  mysterious  psychic 
force  is  at  work";  indeed,  "to  explain  this  process  by  a 
reference  to  what  is  commonly  regarded  as  conscious- 
ness would  be  to  commit  the  fallacy  of  obscurum  per 
obscurius."^^  And  here  is  the  nub  of  the  matter; 
Professor  Perry  is  after  all  unwilling  to  go  outside  the 
categories  of  the  physical  sciences  for  his  account  of 
consciousness,  and  yet  does  not  wish  to  admit  that 
this  logically  shuts  him  up  to  naturalism.  Instead  of 
conscious   purpose,    he    speaks    of    "the    selective    or 

26  Psychological  Review,  25  (1918),  pp.  1-20;  Princeton,  N.  J.,  Psy- 
chological Review  Co.     Compare  P.  C.  I.,  p.  377. 
^  Loc.  cit.,  pp.  1,  2. 
28  Loc.  cit.,  pp.  8,  9,  16. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    43 

higher  propensity,"  or  (following  Thorndike)  of  "the 
learner's  Set  or  Attitude  or  Adjustment  or  Determina- 
tion," or  of  conation,  or  of  something  which  drives  the 
animal  and  ceases  when  the  end  state  is  reached,  or  of 
"the  dominance  of  the  general  motor  set  over  the 
subordinate  reflexes  which  are  assimilated  to  it." 
Purpose  is  present  when  "an  organism  not  only  does 
something,  but  it  learns  how  to  do  something;  the  'how' 
being  selected  and  consolidated  under  the  control  of 
the  'something  to  be  done.'  " 

Let  us  make  explicit  what  such  a  view  of  purpose 
means.  A  physiological  organism  (quite  free  from  any 
obscure  and  mysterious  conscious  purposes,  in  the 
familiar  sense)  is  controlled  by  something  to  be  done 
that  does  not  yet  exist,  or  even  by  a  generalized  ob- 
ject that  never  could  exist  physically,  and  then  both 
selects  and  consolidates  the  means  of  attaining  this 
something  by  which  it  is  to  be  controlled.  In  our 
author's  own  words,  action  is  "determined  by  its  rela- 
tion of  prospective  congruence  with  a  controlling  pro- 
pensity."^^  One  is  tempted  to  inquire.  Which 
language  is  more  obscure:  that  which  speaks  of  a 
conscious  self  as  having  ideas,  forming  plans  of  ac- 
tions, making  choices,  or  that  which  employs  the 
terms  just  cited  from  Professor  Perry  and  speaks  of 
objects  that  do  not  exist  in  the  physical  environment 
as  nevertheless  stimulating  my  organism,  which  is  a 
physical  object?  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
Professor  Pitkin,  speaking  in  another  connection,  says, 
"I  am  aware  that,  in  asserting  planes,  angles,  num- 
bers, ratios,  and  some  other  mathematical  geometrical 
characters   to   be   stimuU    of   the   peripheral   sensory 

»  Loc.  cit.,  p.  12. 


44  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

organs,  in  precisely  the  same  sense  that  ether  waves 
are,  I  am  exposing  myself  to  ridicule."^"  Professor 
Perry's  view  may  be  true,  but  it  is  not  because  it  is 
more  lucid  than  personalism;  and  personalism  may  be 
untrue,  but  not  because  it  involves  metaphysical  as- 
sumptions of  a  theistic  nature  if  the  facts  of  purpose 
in  organic  life  are  to  be  explained. 

Significant,  however,  is  not  merely  the  difficulty  of 
Professor  Perry's  view,  but  also  the  fact  that  he  is 
driven  to  it  by  his  dissatisfaction  with  contemporary 
expressions  of  behaviorism.  Watson,  for  example,  he 
criticizes  as  overlooking  the  fact  that  the  learning 
animal  is  driven  by  something  that  ceases  when  the 
end  state  is  reached.  Holt  he  regards  as  neglecting 
the  dominance  of  general  motor  set  over  the  subor- 
dinate reflexes  assimilated  to  it,  and  as  narrowly  limit- 
ing the  responses  to  facts  of  the  environment.  In 
short,  Professor  Perry  desires  to  do  full  justice  to  the 
complexity,  the  genuinely  teleological  character,  and 
the  nonphysical  or  ideal  elements  of  purpose — pre- 
cisely those  elements  in  which  personalism  is  chiefly 
interested.  In  a  moment  of  exceptional  frankness,  he 
confesses  that  so  simple  a  purposive  activity  as  looking 
for  a  pin  "evidently  requires  an  epistemological  con- 
struction beyond  the  scope  of  a  strictly  physiological 
behaviorism."^^  We  have  found  above  that  modern 
realism  and  behaviorism  had  concluded  an  alliance; 
they  cried  "Peace!  peace!"  but  there  is  no  peace. 
And  one  may  be  pardoned  a  good  deal  of  curiosity  as 
to  this  new  behaviorism  that  is  not  strictly  physiologi- 
cal.   It  may  turn  out  to  be  better  to  admit  that,  since 


2°  The  New  Realism,  p.  425. 
31  Loc  cit.,  p.  7. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    45 

a  purely  naturalistic  behaviorism  cannot  explain  pur- 
pose, a  mixed  or  seminaturalistic  variety  would  prob- 
ably not  function  much  better,  but  would  turn  out  to 
be  a  mere  hybrid  makeshift.  May  it  not  be  that  the 
bottom  has  dropped  out  of  behaviorism  uherhaupt? 
Does  it  not  seem  more  promising  to  return  again  to 
consciousness — yes,  to  personality  itself? 

On  this  foundation  of  a  modified  behaviorism  Pro- 
fessor Perry  would  build  his  theory  of  value.  In  its 
ultimate  terms,  that  theory  is  very  simple.  "Value  is 
dependent  on  consciousness,"  "is  a  function  of  de- 
sire."^^  What,  then,  is  desire.'^  In  human  life  "desire" 
is  synonymous  with  "interest";  and  an  "interest"  is 
"a  unit  of  life,"  "an  organization  which  consistently 
acts  for  its  own  preservation."^^  "Life"  and  "organi- 
zation" are  fairly  colorless  terms,  but  seem  to  designate 
biological  life,  biological  organization.  If  this  seeming 
be  fair  to  Professor  Perry's  intent,  the  fundamental 
unit  of  value  is  a  thoroughly  naturalistic  concept, 
correlated  with  the  corresponding  view  of  conscious- 
ness. That  this  interpretation  is  correct  seems  all 
but  certain  from  Professor  Perry's  statement  that  "I 
use  the  term  'interest'  primarily  in  its  biological 
rather  than  its  psychological  sense.  Certain  natural 
processes  act  consistently  in  such  wise  as  to  isolate, 
protect,  and  renew  themselves."^*  He  tells  us,  in  the 
same  breath,  it  is  true,  that  "a  physiological  account 
of  the  action  of  mind  must  be  supplemented  by  a 
moral  account,"  and  he  is  concerned  to  distinguish 
the  element  of  interest  from  "the  merely  physical  and 


32  The  New  Realism,  pp.  140,  141. 

33  The  Moral  Economy,  p.  11.    Compare  P.  C.  I.,  pp.  368,  369. 
3*  P.  P.  T..  pp.  304,  301,  302. 


46  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

meclianical  element."  But  if  interest  itself  be  a  bio- 
logical unit,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  an  account  in  terms 
of  interest  is  other  than  a  physiological  account. 

The  basic  thesis  of  this  theory  of  value  seems  to  be 
that*'the  fulfillment  of  a  simple  isolated  interest  is  good;" 
"to  like  or  dislike  an  object  is  to  create  that  object's 
value."^^    To  be  of  value,  then,  means  to  be  desired. 

While  the  fulfillment  of  a  single  vagrant  desire, 
whatever  it  may  be,  is  on  this  theory  good  or  valuable, 
it  is  not  yet  morally  good.  "Only  the  fulfillment  of 
an  organization  of  interests  is  morally  good."  In  a 
vivid  phrase,  "morality  is  the  massing  of  interests 
against  a  reluctant  cosmos.  "^^  Now,  this  would  ap- 
pear to  mean  that  there  is  nothing  present  in  the 
moral  or  other  higher  values  that  is  not  given  in 
interest  as  a  biological  unit,  except  quantity.  That 
all  differences  in  value  are  capable  of  quantitative 
measurement — "the  more  the  better" — is  one  of  the 
main  theses  of  the  article  on  "The  Definition  of  Value" 
already  referred  to.  Such  are  the  foundations  on  which 
Professor  Perry's  theory  of  value  is  based.  With  the 
superstructure  we  do  not  need  to  concern  ourselves, 
for  our  interest  is  in  the  fundamental  principles  in- 
volved. We  may  postpone  further  criticism  of  these 
principles  at  present,  while  we  give  our  attention  to 
Professor  Spaulding's  theory  of  value. 

Professor  Spaulding's  most  significant  utterances  on 
our  problems  are  found  in  his  recent  work.  The  New 
Rationalism}'^    We  shall  confine  attention  to  this  book 


^  The  Moral  Economy,  p.  15.  Art.,  "The  Definition  of  Value," 
Jour.  Phil.,  11  (1914),  pp.  157,  153.  Compare  also  the  art.,  "Reli- 
gious Values,"  Am.  Jour.  TheoL,  19  (1915),  pp.  1-16. 

2*  The  Moral  Economy,  pp.  15,  14. 

3'  Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  New  York,  1918. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    47 

in  discussing  his  theory  of  value.  As  in  the  case  of 
Professor  Perry  (although  for  different  reasons),  we 
shall  look  first  at  the  theory  of  consciousness,  then  at 
the  theory  of  value. 

Professors  Perry  and  Spaulding  alike  regard  the 
problem  of  consciousness  as  fundamental  in  philoso- 
p]jy  38  ^^Q  have  seen  that  the  former  based  his  view 
on  a  criticism  of  the  relational  theory  of  consciousness, 
which  we  have  already  discussed.  The  relational 
theory  is  explicitly  accepted  by  Professor  Spaulding,^^ 
who  ascribes  it  to  Woodbridge,  Pitkin,  and  Holt,  but 
makes  no  mention  of  Perry's  emended  form  of  the 
theory.  Silence  in  this  case  would  seem  to  give  the 
reverse  of  consent. 

Professor  Spaulding  is  aware  of  the  historical  (per- 
sonalistic)  objections  urged  against  any  theory  that, 
like  the  relational,  explains  personality  in  terms  of 
the  impersonal,  or  neutral.  They  are  (as  he  states 
them)  first,  that  "consciousness  seems  too  tangible, 
solid,  and  substance-like  ...  to  be  a  mere  relation," 
and,  secondly,  that  it  involves  "too  much  of  a  con- 
tinuity and  unity  of  personality. "^°  It  is  not  alto- 
gether clear  just  how  Professor  Spaulding  would 
dispose  of  these  two  considerations.  But  one  of  the 
main  theses  of  his  book  is  that  substance  is  a  category 
modeled  by  Aristotle  on  the  concept  of  a  physical 
thing,  and  that  hence  there  is  no  room  for  it  in  a  New 
Realism  that  does  not  recognize  "things"  as  ultimate. 
It  does  not  seem  to  occur  to  him  that  personality  may 
perhaps  fulfill  that  category  in  a  unique  sense,  nor 


38  p.  p.  T.,  p.  227;  N.  Ra.,  p.  91. 
»  N.  Ra.,  p.  89,  n.  3. 
«  N.  Ra.,  p.  90. 


48  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

that  the  ultimate  subsistent  entities  of  his  own  uni- 
verse are  in  some  sense  an  illustration  of  that  category. 
Indeed,  his  tone  seems  to  imply  that  there  is  no  sub- 
stance; but  that  if  there  were,  we  should  have  to 
admit  that  personality  was  an  instance  of  it.  At  all 
costs,  the  view  that  consciousness  is  a  substance  (or 
"container")  must  be  given  up;  not  through  any 
defect  in  consciousness,  but  because  of  the  rejection 
of  the  category  of  substance.^^  He  is  thus  in  the 
suburbs  of  the  personalistic  insight  that  true  substance 
is  to  be  found  not  in  "things"  but  only  in  active,  cau- 
sal, purposive  personality. 

With  reference  to  the  other  matter,  the  unity  of 
personality,  Professor  Spaulding  would  doubtless  point 
to  his  belief  that  "knowing"  cannot  be  "an  absolutely 
simple  term,  since  such  a  term,  illustrated  by  a  point 
and  an  instant,  cannot  appear  and  disappear,^-  as 
states  of  consciousness  notoriously  do.  That  is,  he 
rejects  one  abstraction  out  of  personal  life,  the  physi- 
cal thing,  as  his  model  of  "substance,"  and  substitutes 
for  it  a  much  higher  abstraction,  namely,  the  points 
and  instants  of  mathematical  analysis.  We  may 
agree  that  personality  is  not  a  substance  like  a  phy- 
sical thing,  nor  a  unity  like  a  mathematical  point. 
But  that  products  of  personal  thinking,  like  mathe- 
matics, can  yield  a  deeper  insight  into  unity  than  is 
afforded  by  the  experience  of  self,  through  which 
alone  mathematics  is  possible,  is  not  established  by 
Neo-Realism.  The  purposes  of  the  analyzing  mind 
are  ultimately  the  only  standard  by  which  the  results 
of  analysis  may  be  tested. 


"  N.  Ra.,  pp.  470,  492. 
42  N.  Ra.,  pp.  88,  89. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    49 

Personality  rejected,  there  remains  the  view  that 
consciousness  is  "a  relational  complex"  that  arises 
"when  the  .  .  .  entity  that  is  to  become  known  gets 
into  certain  specific  relations  with  ...  an  organism 
having  a  nervous  system.  .  .  ."  This  is  a  mild  behav- 
iorism, which  holds  that  in  the  case  of  certain  behav- 
ior, the  knowing  situation  arises;  that  is,  something 
psychical,  not  merely  physiological,  occurs.  The 
general  tenor  of  Professor  Spaulding's  book  is  to  the 
effect  that  consciousness  exists. ^^  The  mildness  (soft- 
ness, as  James  might  put  it)  of  his  behaviorism  is 
further  evidenced  by  his  criticism  of  that  theory  itself 
as  subject  to  the  error  of  (at  least  tacitly)  assuming 
that  the  study  of  "the  *conditions,'  'elements,'  organ- 
izing relations  (and  the  like)  of  any  specific  kind  or 
instance  of  consciousness,  sensory  or  other,  does  away 
with,  nullifies,  or  makes  a  non-fact  of  the  whole  that 
results  from  the  organized  elements,  that  is,  the  sen- 
sation, memory-image,  abstract  idea,  and  the  like."^^ 
This  seems  to  mean  that  consciousness  must  be 
recognized  as  something  uniquely  different  from  its 
"conditions"  or  "elements,"  possessing  qualities  that 
cannot  be  stated  in  terms  of  these  "conditions"  or 
"elements."  Just  this  criticism  appears  to  be  valid 
as  against  Professor  Perry's  theory,  even  in  its 
modified  form.  On  the  whole.  Professor  Spaulding's 
theory  is  distinctly  more  inclined  to  accord  an  in- 
dependent status  to  personality  than  is  Professor 
Perry's.  The  latter  rejected  awareness.  Professor 
Spaulding  defines  the    knowing  process   in   terms   of 

«  Professor  Pratt  refers  to  A^.  Ra.,  pp.  253,  356,  373,  447,  484-485, 
490  as  teaching  this.  See  his  whole  article,  "Professor  Spaulding's 
Nonexistent  Illusions,"  Jour.  Phil.,  15  (1918),  pp.  688-695. 

«  N.  Ra.,  p.  478. 


50  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

awareness.'^       He     also     emphasizes     "the    nontem- 

poral   and    nonspatial    character  of    consciousness  as 
such."46 

That  Professor  Spaulding  is  himself  not  satisfied 
with  his  account  of  consciousness  is  evidenced  by 
numerous  contradictions  in  his  thought  on  the  sub- 
ject, contradictions  that  do  honor  to  his  love  of 
truth  and  willingness  to  face  the  problems.  Professor 
Pratt  has  called  attention  to  those  centering  around 
the  theory  of  error.  Here  we  shall  mention  only 
Professor  Spaulding's  vacillating  attitude  to  his  rela- 
tional theory  of  consciousness.  His  final  view  is  that 
consciousness  is  a  dimension,  "a  linear  series,"  but  a 
"new"  dimension,  "and,  therefore,  more  than  a  mere 
class."^^  Just  as  a  series  of  points  results  in  a  new 
dimension,  length,  so  "a  serial  organization  of  ether- 
waves,  waves  of  air,  physico-chemical  processes  .  .  ." 
results  in  "one  whole  .  .  .  ,  the  sensation."^^  This 
would  seem  to  be  a  clear  enough  explanation  of  the 
personal  in  terms  of  the  impersonal,  with  the  aid  of  a 
figure  of  speech  from  mathematics;  but  since  he  fol- 
lows this  with  the  criticism  of  behaviorism  in  favor  of 
consciousness,  and  by  the  explicit  rejection  of  the 
(once  accepted)  relational  theory  of  consciousness,  it 
would  appear  that  he  is  more  interested  in  the  unique- 
ness, novelty,  independence  of  consciousness,  after  all, 
than  in  its  analysis.  His  argument  that,  since  there 
can  be  a  relation  between  consciousness  and  its  "ele- 
ments" (and  other  "things"),  consciousness  itself  can- 
not be  merely  a  relation,  not  only  concedes  much  to 

«  N.  Ra.,  p.  492. 
«  N.  Ra.,  p.  492. 
«  N.  Ra.,  p.  471. 

"8  N.  Ra.,  p.  477. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    51 

personalism,  but  also  cuts  deep  into  the  external 
theory  of  relations.'*^ 

For  the  purpose  of  understanding  the  realistic  theory 
of  value,  Professor  Spaulding's  account  of  conscious- 
ness is  significant  chiefly  as  a  domestic  criticism  of 
Professor  Perry's  behaviorism.  For,  unlike  the  latter. 
Professor  Spaulding  does  not  adhere  to  a  fundamental 
consciousness  value-theory,  but  clearly  accepts  an 
extra-mental  view.     He  classifies  theories  of  value  as 

(1)  the  (extreme  subjectivistic)  view  "that  all  values 
are   wholly    dependent   upon    a   consciousness,"    and 

(2)  the  view  that  "there  are  some  values  which  can  be 
demonstrated  to  be  independent  of  all  consciousness." 
On  this  latter  view,  says  Professor  Spaulding,  the 
Deity  may  be  "that  which  is  value  in  the  universe," 
"a  Being  supra-personal  and  perhaps  supra-conscious. "^° 
This  second  is  his  own  view. 

Professor  Spaulding  arrives  at  his  "extra-mental" 
theory  of  value  somewhat  as  follows:  He  starts  tenta- 
tively with  a  definition  of  value  as  "anything  that  is 
desired  and  accepted  as  an  end  to  be  attained."^^  In 
the  discussion  of  the  "value-centric  predicament"  he 
still  uses  the  term  "value"  in  the  subjectivistic  sense 
of  "desires,  preferences,  yearnings."^-  But  these  ex- 
pressions give  no  clue  to  his  own  theory,  which  he 
describes  as  a  "Neo-Realism  of  ideals."  These  ideals 
are  "discovered  by  reason,"  are  a  "command,"  and 
are  realized  through  our  freedom  "to  go  counter  to 

^^  N.  Ra.,  p.  482.  Spaulding  is  here  on  the  verge  of  the  truth  that 
all  terms  and  relations  are  relative  to  the  purposes  of  some  mind. 
But  this  would  lead  us  back  to  personality  as  unitary  substance,  and 
the  forbidden  "ego-centric  predicament." 

60  N.  Ra.,  p.  69. 

"  N.  Ra..  p.  66. 

62  N.  Ra.,  p.  206. 


52  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  desires  and  impulses  that  are  causally  and  instinc- 
tively rooted  in  human  nature. "^^  They  are  inde- 
pendent of  the  physiological  organism.  Values,  ideals, 
do  not  exist  in  space  and  time;  they  are,  or  at  least 
moral  values  are,  "serially  organized,"  are  "efficient," 
"account  for  the  appearance  of  consciousness,"  have 
"agency,"  are  "objective."^^  Professor  Spaulding,  in 
short,  avows  himself  a  Platonist,  a  conclusion  mani- 
festly consistent  with  an  important  side  of  Neo- 
Realism.  Most  members  of  the  school  are  Platonic 
realists  with  reference  to  the  universals  of  mathe- 
matics and  logic  ;^^  Professor  Spaulding  extends  this 
Platonism  to  the  realm  of  values,  its  native  element. 

For  any  Platonism,  old  or  new,  there  are  at  least 
two  very  difficult  problems:  first,  the  problem  as  to 
the  relation  between  "ideas"  and  the  phenomena  of 
experience;  and,  secondly,  the  problem  as  to  the  pre- 
cise nature  of  the  objective  existence  (or  "subsist- 
ence") of  these  ideas.  Professor  Spaulding's  solution 
of  the  first  problem,  summarized  above,  is  in  terms 
of  what  Dr.  Bowne  would  call  a  theory  of  meta- 
physical causality,  although  Professor  Spaulding  has 
condemned  causation-philosophy  as  well  as  substance- 
philosophy,  and  although  he  struggles  to  avoid  using 
the  term  "cause"  of  the  relations  between  ideals  and 
the  phenomena  of  consciousness.  In  any  event,  these 
ideals  produce  results  in  life  that  merely  mechanical 
explanation  cannot  account  for.  Yes,  even  the  very 
world  process  itself,  physical  though  it  be,  is  somehow 
dominated  by  value,  for  it  has  direction  and  is  crea- 


se N.  Ra.,  pp.  vi,  395,  507,  501. 

"  N.  Ra.,  pp.  479-480,  515-516,  497-498. 

"  P.  C.  I.,  p.  371. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    53 

tive.^^  Thus  the  entire  realm  of  nature  is  in  some 
sense  ruled  by  the  agency  of  value. 

To  the  second  problem,  as  to  the  objective  nature 
of  value,  Professor  Spaulding  adumbrates  various  an- 
swers. First,  he  tacitly  assumes  that  the  presence  of 
value  in  life  must  be  due  to  a  unitary  cause.  "There 
is  an  efficient  agent  or  power  to  produce  all  values." 
Secondly,  he  further  assumes  that  only  value  can 
produce  value,  and  concludes  that  the  unitary  cause 
is  therefore  itself  a  value."  There  is,  then,  one  su- 
preme, objective  value  in  this  Platonic  Neo-Realism, 
a  self -existent  sovereign  in  the  hierarchy  of  values; 
yet  not  "existent"  in  realistic  sense  of  being  correlated 
with  space  and  time,  but  "subsistent,"  and  transcend- 
ing those  limits.  Professor  Spaulding  is  aware  of 
being  in  the  neighborhood  of  theism,  and  he  speaks  of 
"God."  But,  strangely,  having  just  argued  for  an 
efficient  power  or  agent  that  produces  all  values,  he 
proceeds  to  identify  God,  not  with  that  power,  but 
with  the  "totality  of  values,  both  existent  and  sub- 
sistent."^^ 

This  definition  of  God  does  not  clear  things  up 
sufficiently.  Just  what  is  this  God,  this  realm  of 
values .^^  The  "ideals"  seem  strangely  like  abstractions 
endowed  with  life,  like  hypostasized  concepts.  How 
can  an  hypostasized  concept  have  efficiency.''  Does 
God  possess  the  agency  of  a  personal  will  and  purpose? 
Professor  Spaulding' s  only  answer,  very  casually  given, 
is:  "Accordingly,  if  God  is  personality,  he  is  also  more 
than  personality,  even  as  the  moral  situation  among 


66  N.  Ra.,  pp.  512-514. 
"  N.  Ra.,  p.  514. 
68  N.  Ra..  p.  517. 


54  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

men  is  more  than  personality.  He  is  love  and  aifec- 
tion  and  goodness,  respect  and  reverence,  as  these 
exist  among  men  and  in  men,  but  he  is  these  also  as  they 
subsist  by  themselves,  and  act  eflficiently  upon  men. 
In  brief,  God  is  Value,  the  active,  'living'  principle  of 
the  conservation  of  values  and  of  their  eflSciency."**^ 
The  only  comment  on  such  a  position  must  be  one  of 
regret  that  a  thinker  usually  so  conscientious  should 
here  speak  so  vaguely  and  loosely.  The  problem  itself 
is  at  once  the  most  important  and  the  most  difficult 
of  all  the  problems  that  confront  the  human  mind. 
All  the  greater,  then,  the  obligation  to  define  our 
terms  as  precisely  as  possible.  Professor  Spaulding 
neither  defines  what  he  means  by  personality  in  this 
connection,  nor  indicates  whether  God  is  a  personality 
for  himself  in  any  sense,  in  addition  to  his  existence  in 
and  for  human  personalities.  At  any  rate.  Professor 
Spaulding  uses  the  third  personal  pronoun  masculine 
of  his  God,  and  thus  personifies  him.  But  he  bases 
his  claim  to  be  theistic  and  not  pantheistic  not  on  the 
personality  of  God,  but  on  the  reality  of  evil  in  the 
world. '^°  Professor  Spaulding  not  only  hovers  on  the 
verge  of  personalism;  he  comes  near  to  giving  us  a 
God  and  a  Satan  too.  It  is  significant  that  his  extra- 
mental,  utterly  objective,  value-theory  leads  him  to 
thoughts  of  God  and  personality;  and  yet  compels  him 
to  remain  in  a  view  that  seems  to  a  personalist  as 
"romantic,"  "mystical,"  and  "ineffable,"  as  personal- 
ism could  well  appear  to  its  critics. 

Professor  Perry  taught  us  to  regard  value  as  always 
dependent  on  consciousness,  and  yet  ventures  to  hope 

M  N.  Ra.,  p.  517. 
««  iV.  Ra.,  p.  520. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    55 

for  the  objective  triumph  of  vakie  in  the  world 
(meliorism).  Professor  Spaulding  asserts  that  some 
(and  the  most  important)  values  are  objective  and 
extra-mental,  and  yet  in  formulating  objectivity  uses 
terms  that  suggest  a  supreme  personality,  just,  affec- 
tionate, loyal,  as  the  highest  value,  and  source  of  all 
value  in  the  universe.  Is  not  a  personalist  warranted 
in  feeling  that  his  view  represents  the  synthesis  of 
these  two  positions?  For  him,  as  for  Perry,  value  is 
always  dependent  on  consciousness;  yet  not  utterly 
dependent  on  human  consciousness,  for  subjective 
value  implies  objective  value,  as  Spaulding  holds; 
but  the  objectivity  of  value  is  identical  with  the  per- 
sonality to  which  religion  gives  the  name  of  God.  The 
following  series  of  considerations  will  show  some  of 
the  grounds  for  confidence  in  the  personalistic  syn- 
thesis as  opposed  to  the  realistic  theories  that  we  have 
been  considering. 

1.  Professor  Perry's  unit  of  value,  "interest,"  is  dis- 
dinctly  impersonal.  As  a  mere  tendency  to  act  for  its 
own  self-preservation,  it  is  an  entity  in  the  life  of  the 
organism,  considered  by  itself,  apart  from  any  ideal 
or  obligation  or  recognition  of  a  unitary  personality, 
with  its  laws  and  its  claims. 

2.  Where  morality  is  (as  for  Professor  Perry),  a 
massing  of  impersonal  interests  "against  a  reluctant 
cosmos,"  interest  being  interpreted  behavioristically, 
morality  becomes  logically  identical  with  physiological 
efficiency.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Professor  Perry 
would  repudiate  this  conclusion,  but  his  attitude  would 
appear  to  be  dictated  rather  by  his  fine  moral  sense 
than  by  the  logic  of  his  theory  of  value. 

3.  A  fundamental  difficulty  with  Professor  Perry's 


56  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

view  is  that  "interest"  in  actual  life  is  (contrary  to 
his  theory)  not  made  up  by  a  massing  of  interest-units. 
Interests  massed  give  rise  to  new  interests  that  stand 
in  no  quantitative  relation  to  their  "constituent" 
interests.  He  asserts  that  "in  two  of  a  given  unit  of 
goodness  there  is  more  of  goodness  than  in  one."^^  It 
would  be  difficult  to  mention  a  unit  of  which  this 
would  be  unconditionally  true;  two  dinners,  or  wives, 
or  religions,  or  inches  on  the  end  of  one's  nose,  or  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  are  not  necessarily  better,  in  any 
respect,  than  one  of  each  of  these  units.  "Units"  of 
interest  are  always  relative  to  the  total  personal  situa- 
tion; and  that  situation,  animated  by  some  ideal,  does 
not  aim  to  amass  a  certain  quantity  of  units,  but, 
rather,  to  transform  and  organize  all  units  under  the 
guidance  of  some  supreme  or  unifying  ideal.  There  is 
an  interest,  let  us  say,  in  color.  There  is  also  an  artis- 
tic ideal.  When  an  artist  combines  his  colors  so  as  to 
produce  a  painting,  the  number  of  interests-in-color 
satisfied  is  irrelevant,  and  entirely  subordinate  to  the 
question  as  to  whether  the  combination  of  colors 
embodies  the  ideal  meaning  that  the  artist  was  seek- 
ing to  express.  If  it  be  urged  that  interest  in  such  an 
ideal  meaning  is  also  an  interest,  it  must  be  said  that 
such  an  interest  is  incapable  of  merely  quantitative 
comparison  with  others. 

4.  Interest-in-relation-to-object  is  not  (as  Professor 
Perry  holds)  the  unit  of  intrinsic  value;  it  should  be 
regarded,  rather,  as  an  assertion  of  value,  but  an 
assertion  (or  judgment,  vs.  Perry,  again)  that  may 
well  be  in  error.  Fulfilled  interest  is  indeed  value  for 
the  purpose  of  mere  adaptation;  the  object  is  valuable 

"  The  Moral  Economy,  p.  56. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    57 

in  so  far  as  it  is  adapted  to  fulfilling  the  interest.  But 
just  such  fulfilled  interest  is  often  enough  judged  to  be 
an  element  of  disvalue,  that  is,  fulfillment  of  interest 
has  neither  intrinsic  nor  extrinsic  value  when  the 
object  that  fulfills  the  interest  is  judged  to  be  in  con- 
flict with  what  one  regards  as  a  "higher"  ideal: 
"higher,"  not  because  it  fulfills  a  larger  number  of 
interests,  but  because  it  fulfills  what  are  judged  to  be 
more  imperative  ones,  such  as  the  laws  of  reason, 
aesthetic  preference  (which  Professor  Perry  recognizes), 
obedience  to  conscience,  or  love.  Mill  is  not  the  only 
one  to  believe  that  "it  is  better  to  be  a  human  being 
dissatisfied  than  a  pig  satisfied."  A  few  unfulfilled 
interests  may  come  nearer  to  fulfilling  an  ideal  than 
multitudes  of  fulfilled  interests. 

5.  Value,  that  is  to  say,  is  always  relative  to  an 
ideal  of  what  humanity  ought  to  be,  or  at  least  to  an 
ideal  of  one's  own  personality,  either  implicit  or  ex- 
plicit. Self-realization  (as  moral  ideal)  ought  to  mean 
not  mere  complexity  of  functioning,  multiplicity  of 
satisfied  interests,  but  also,  and  more  fundamentally, 
the  achievement  of  a  particular  type  of  human  life, 
and  the  discipline  of  impulse  in  the  interests  of  that 
type.  The  Stoic  ideal  of  the  sage,  the  Pauline  concep- 
tion of  life  "in  Christ,"  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  the 
dignity  of  the  moral  person,  T.  H.  Green's  teaching 
that  "our  ultimate  standard  of  worth  is  an  ideal  of 
personal  worth,"^^  Diirr's  Persdnlichkeitsideal,  and 
Bowne's  "ideal  of  humanity"®^  are  all  attempts  to 
express  this  same  concept. 

The  use  of  this  principle  in  a  theory  of  moral  value 

^  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  p.  210. 

"  Principles  of  Ethics,  pp.  97,  111,  116ff.,  133. 


58  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

has  been  criticized.  It  has  been  said  that  the  ideal  of 
humanity  (which  in  T,  H.  Green's  theory  means  that 
human  selves  are  the  temporal  manifestation  of  an 
eternal  self)  "throws  no  ray  of  light  upon  the  specific 
problems  of  morality."^*  While  this  is  perhaps  true 
of  our  ideas  of  the  "Eternal  Self,"  it  is  hardly  true  of 
our  concrete  ideal  of  what  our  own  personality  should 
become.  Professor  Perry  believes  that  Green's  view 
reduces  to  the  maxim,  "Fulfillment  of  interest  as  such 
is  good,  therefore  the  more  the  better."^''  But  it  is 
very  doubtful  whether  such  a  reduction  can  be  proven. 
Interest  in  interests  is  different  from  obedience  to  a 
self-imposed  ideal  of  personality.  The  fact  that  it  is 
easier  to  count  interests  than  to  make  or  estimate 
ideals  of  personality  does  not  prove  that  the  easier 
theory  is  the  truer.  That  ideal  admittedly  appeals  to 
the  creative  imagination  for  the  ultimate  test  of  all 
values;  but  an  imagination  instructed  by  the  growing 
totality  of  life.  It  admittedly  is  not  made  up  of  rig- 
orously calculable  units.  A  philosophy  based  on  this 
conception  of  value  cannot  be  either  mathematical  or 
scientific,  as  Neo-Realists  count  science,  for  it  regards 
value  as  a  whole  that  cannot  be  understood  by  analy- 
sis. This  theory,  like  Professor  Perry's,  emphasizes 
the  dependence  of  value  upon  consciousness;  unlike  his, 
it  affords  a  positive  basis  for  the  gradation  of  our 
interests  themselves,  a  system  of  values. 

The  Neo-Realist  would  doubtless  object  to  the  com- 
plex and  mysterious  character  of  this  ideal.  But  if  it 
be  found  that  every  valuation  of  every  type — cogni- 
tive, or  aesthetic,  or  moral — presupposes  that  the  true 

"W.  G.  Everett,  Moral  Values,  p.  2. 
66  Jour.  Phil.,  11  (1914),  p.  157. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    59 

value  in  each  instance  is  not  what  now  satisfies  me,  or 
what  I  now  desire,  but  what  conforms  to  the  nature 
of  an  ideally  wise,  appreciative,  and  good  person,  and 
that  I  do  actually  judge  my  own  value-assertions  with 
reference  to  my  ideal  of  this  person,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  why  the  complexity  or  even  the  mystical  character 
of  the  ideal  is  an  objection  to  it.  Perhaps  ideal  value 
is  complex  and  mystical. 

6.  Value  is  objective,  as  well  as  dependent  on  con- 
sciousness. Professor  Perry's  subjective  consciousness 
theory  found  it  to  be  objective,  in  the  sense  that  our 
desires  are  independent  of  our  knowledge  of  them. 
Professor  Spaulding's  extra-mental  theory  found  it  to 
be  objective  as  the  Platonic  ideas  are,  namely,  inde- 
pendent of  all  consciousness.  Both  realists  agree  in 
the  conviction  that  values  not  merely  ought-to-be,  but 
in  some  sense  actually  are.  We  may  add  that  so  funda- 
mental a  fact  as  the  experience  of  value  may  well  be 
regarded  as  revealing  something  about  the  structure 
of  reality.  But  just  what  does  it  reveal .^^  Professor 
Perry  replies  that  there  are  desires;  Professor  Spauld- 
ing  that  there  are  impersonal  and  immaterial  efficien- 
cies dominating  the  universe;  personalism,  as  well  as 
Green's  idealism,  that  the  ideal  of  humanity  suggests 
a  perfect  person  who  ought  to  be.  And  lo !  we  are  face 
to  face  again  with  the  ontological  argument  once  more 
in  the  history  of  thought,  but  in  a  much  more  modest 
form.  For  the  personalist  does  not  regard  the  de- 
mands of  our  nature  for  perfection  as  a  theoretical 
proof.  He  admits  the  impossibility  of  a  "rigor  and 
vigor"  demonstration  of  an  objective  order  of  value 
in  a  supreme  personality.  He  only  contends  that  the 
actual  existence  of  this  ideal  personality  is  needed  if 


60  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

his  system  of  value- judgments  is  to  have  the  objec- 
tivity that  it  demands.  It  may  be  doubted  whether 
other  objective  truths  regarding  concrete  matters  may 
be  any  more  conclusively  proved  than  this  one. 

7.  The  personalistic  theory  is  not  open  to  Professor 
Perry's  criticism  of  absolutism.  "Absolute  optimism,'* 
the  theory  that  reality  is  "the  very  incarnation  of 
value,"  reduces,  in  Professor  Perry's  judgment,  to 
coherence  which  "looks  suspiciously  as  though  it  were 
dictated  by  the  facts  of  nature." ^^  Not  so,  in  per- 
sonalism.  In  its  universe  there  is  room  for  good  per- 
sons and  bad  ones,  for  real  value,  and  equally  real 
disvalue.  Instead  of  absolute  optimism,  personalism, 
with  Neo-Realism,  offers  a  meliorism;  instead  of  "the 
monism  of  values"  by  which  "all  values  are  conceived 
as  of  that  one  type  which  is  represented  by  the  uni- 
verse as  a  whole,""  there  is  a  pluralism  of  values, 
represented  by  many  attitudes  toward  the  ideal  of  the 
Perfect  Person.  Absolutism  may  perhaps  "tend  to 
tolerance  of  evil";  personalism  emphasizes  personal  re- 
sponsibility both  for  and  adhering  to  an  ideal  of 
humanity. 

8.  Personalism  affords  a  more  rational  basis  for  free- 
dom than  does  Neo-Realism.  That  the  latter  recog- 
nizes freedom  in  any  sense  is  surprising.  But  Professor 
Perry  emphasizes  what  he  calls  "positive  freedom," 
the  fact  that  "I  can  and  do  within  limits  act  as  I  will." 
He  points  out  that  this  means  that  "in  a  measure  life 
is  independent  of  mechanism"  and  "in  a  certain  sense 
the  control  of  life  by  moral  laws  takes  precedence  of 


"  P.  C.  /.,  pp.  232,  241.    He  has  in  mind  especially  Pringle-Pattison 
and  Creighton. 
6'  P.  C.  /.,  p.  246. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    61 

its  control  by  mechanical  laws."^^  This  is  doubtless 
consistent  with  the  realistic  theory  of  external  rela- 
tions, as  well  as  with  the  demands  of  real  experience. 
But  Professor  Spaulding's  plea  for  freedom  is  much 
more  adequate  to  the  facts  as  a  personalist  sees  them. 
"The  very  possibility,"  he  writes,  "of  freeing  oneself 
from  one  universe  of  discourse,  conditioned  by  one 
set  of  assumptions,  and  of  then  putting  oneself  into 
another  'universe'  leads  to  the  specific  hypothesis  that 
any  specific  reasoning  process  is  certainly  not  causally 
related  to  all  other  'things'  and  perhaps  not  even  to 
other  conscious  processes  or  even  to  other  specific 
knowing  processes."^^  His  dimensional  theory  of  con- 
sciousness doubtless  entitles  him  to  a  more  personalis- 
tic  conception  than  behaviorism  would  grant  to  Pro- 
fessor Perry.  But  if  freedom  be  a  fundamental  fact  of 
human  consciousness  (and  both  our  Neo-Realists  are 
agreed  that  it  is),  if  without  freedom  men  could  not 
obey  the  commands  of  value  to  do  as  they  ought  to 
do,^°  it  would  seem  that  the  realistic  attempt  to  escape 
from  personality  had  broken  down,  so  far  as  theory  of 
value  is  concerned.  For  whatever  is  thus  capable  of 
free  self-determination,  on  which  all  other  "universes 
of  discourse"  are  admittedly  dependent,  is  personality 
in  the  personalistic  sense,  and  may  well  be  regarded 
as  an  "entity"  even  though  it  be  "complex" — though 
the  realistic  highway  of  analysis  as  the  one  road  to 
truth  be  thereby  blocked.  Personalism  makes  the 
basic  fact  of  freedom  frankly  fundamental  to  its  whole 
view  of  consciousness;  Neo-Realism  in  the  presence  of 


'  P.  P.  T.,  p.  343. 

'  N.  Ra.,  p.  391. 

'  N.  Ra..  pp.  395,  451. 


62  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

values  feels  driven  to  smuggle  it  in,  but  neither  in 
behavior,  nor  in  a  new  dimension  does  it  have  an 
adequate  "home"  for  freedom.  Perhaps  it  needs  no 
home;  it  may  float  neutrally  about  nowhere  like  the 
other  "subsistents,"  but  such  a  view  would  make 
greater  demands  on  imagination  and  faith  than  does 
the  view  that  the  conscious  self  is  real  and  is  free. 

9.  Personalism  gives  a  more  reasonable  account  of 
religious  values  than  does  Neo-Realism.  Professor 
Perry,'^  with  his  repudiation  of  every  moral  and  spirit- 
ual ontology,  with  his  universe  of  neutrals,  neverthe- 
less makes  "the  hazard  of  faith"  to  a  belief  in  a 
"forward  movement  of  life,"  and  in  "man's  hope  of 
possessing  the  world  in  the  end."  "The  narrow  and 
abstract  predictions  of  astronomy"  might  lead  us  to 
look  with  B.  Russell  for  the  ultimate  ruin  of  all  man's 
achievement;  but  this  is  "provincial  and  unimagina- 
tive"; we  may  as  well  hope,  and  greet  "the  residual 
cosmos"  "as  a  promise  of  salvation."  Life  is  after  all 
too  much  for  Professor  Perry's  rigid  scientific  method 
and  anti-romanticism.  But  the  faith  at  which  he 
arrives  is  very  mild  in  comparison  with  the  real  reli- 
gious consciousness  of  mankind.  If  it  is  permissible 
to  hope,  why  not  hope  on  a  larger  scale,  and  think 
one's  hopes  through?  Professor  Perry's  philosophy  of 
religion,  if  such  it  should  be  called,  differs  from  that  of 
personalism,  in  that  his  refuses  to  become  conscious  of 
its  implications,  its  fundamental  bearing  on  all  of  life 
and  science,  its  relations  to  ontology.  That  is  to  say, 
such  realism  desires  a  moral  world-view  in  a  water- 
tight compartment  of  utterly  ineffable  mystery;  for 
there  is  no  reason,  in  a  neutral  universe,  either  for  the 

'1  P.  P.  T.,  pp.  344-347. 


NEO-REALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  VALUE    63 

fact  of  past  progress  or  for  the  hope  of  future.  There 
is  mystery  enough,  personahsm  would  grant.  But  the 
hypothesis  of  moral  and  rational  personality  as  the 
key  to  ontology  makes  many  facts  intelligible  that 
realism  leaves  obscure.  Personalism  does  not  lay 
claim  to  the  apodictic  certainty  of  realistic  "dog- 
matism"; but  it  may  reasonably  offer  itself  as  a  more 
intelligible  interpretation  of  religious  faith  than  Pro- 
fessor Perry  has  presented. 

Professor  Spaulding's  idea  of  God,  already  dis- 
cussed, comes  dangerously  near  to  being  a  moral  and 
spiritual  ontology,  so  repugnant  to  other  realists.  But 
it  has  already  been  shown  how  vague  Professor  Spauld- 
ing's conception  of  God  is  in  comparison  with  the 
view  of  God  as  personality;  and  how  inadequate  is 
his  conception  of  value  as  impersonal,  objective  effi- 
ciency, in  comparison  with  the  interpretation  of  it  as 
personal  experience  fulfilling  our  ideal  of  personality, 
and  deriving  its  efficiency  from  no  mysterious  prop- 
erty of  its  own,  but  from  our  free  response  to  it  and 
from  the  divine  will  in  which  it  has  its  origin  and 
eternal  being. 

The  present  examination  of  Neo-Realism  as  a  theory 
of  value  has  shown  us  that  Professors  Perry  and 
Spaulding  each  would  evade  the  principle  of  personal- 
ity as  the  home  of  value.  The  former  seeks  refuge  in 
the  depths,  the  latter  in  the  heights.  Which,  being 
interpreted,  means  that  Professor  Perry's  explanation, 
although  a  consciousness  theory,  is  subpersonal,  reduc- 
ing personality  to  behavior,  and  value  to  interest  as  a 
biological  unit.  Professor  Spaulding,  on  the  supra- 
personal   heights,    makes   more   numerous   and   more 


64  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

notable  concessions  to  personalism  than  does  his 
fellow-platformist.  But  as  the  new  movement  in 
philosophy  fails  to  come  to  a  satisfactory  definition  of 
its  attitude  to  value  and  religion,  and  even  fails  to 
attain  agreement  within  itself,  personalists  have  little 
reason  to  believe  that  a  more  comprehensive  or  intel- 
ligible explanation  of  the  facts  than  their  own  has  yet 
been  found,  or  is  very  likely  to  be  found. 


I 


IV 

A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT 

(Illustrated  in  John  Wesley) 

D.  A.  Hayes 

In  a  democratic  reorganization  of  Christendom  it 
will  be  recognized  that  a  very  extensive  unity  in  belief 
is  neither  necessary  nor  possible  nor  desirable.  On 
the  contrary,  the  widest  divergence  of  opinion  on 
many  important  themes  will  be  recognized  as  con- 
sistent with  thoroughgoing  unity  in  the  Spirit.  A 
reunited  and  truly  catholic  church  must  rest  upon  the 
basis  of  absolute  freedom  of  thought  and  "liberty  of 
prophesying."  The  dogma  of  papal  infallibility  must 
be  set  aside  and  no  assumption  of  infallibility  on  the 
part  of  any  Protestant  individuals  or  bodies  must  be 
permitted  to  take  its  place.  The  unquestioned  right 
of  private  judgment  must  be  acknowledged  by  all  and 
the  toleration  of  any  theological  opinions  consistent 
with  a  holy  and  useful  life  must  be  practiced  by  all. 
A  universal  church  can  neither  be  established  nor 
maintained  on  any  other  foundation  than  that  of 
loving  liberty  of  thought  and  speech  and  action  on 
the  part  of  all  its  members.  We  must  be  willing  to 
"think  and  let  think,"  or  we  must  be  contented  with  a 
disunited  Christendom  forever. 

The  Christian  Church  is  to  be  a  universal  church, 
and  a  universal  church  will  contain,  and  must  contain, 
an  almost  infinite  variety  of  racial,  national,  eccle- 
siastical, and  creedal  types.     Its  motto  ought  to  be, 

65 


66  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  necessarily  must  be,  that  old  motto  of  Meiderlin, 
In  necessariis  unitas,  in  duhiis  libertas,  in  omnibus 
caritas.  John  Wesley  saw  this  clearly  enough  in  his 
day.  He  said:  "It  is  certain,  so  long  as  we  know  but 
in  part,  that  all  men  will  not  see  all  things  alike.  It 
is  an  unavoidable  consequence  of  the  present  weak- 
ness and  shortness  of  the  human  understanding,  that 
several  men  will  be  of  several  minds  in  religion  as  well 
as  in  common  life.  So  it  has  been  from  the  beginning 
of  the  world,  and  so  it  will  be  till  the  restitution  of  all 
things."! 

One  sometimes  hears  it  stated  that  the  early  Chris- 
tians were  all  of  one  mind,  but  the  Pauline  epistles 
and  the  book  of  Acts  do  not  bear  out  the  assertion. 
We  find  the  records  of  disagreements  there.  Paul 
and  Barnabas  had  a  sharp  contention  at  one  time,  and 
at  another  time  Paul  withstood  Peter  to  the  very 
face.  The  first  Christians  differed  in  opinion  as  to  the 
practical  methods  of  procedure  in  the  distribution  of 
alms  and  as  to  the  conditions  upon  which  the  Gentiles 
should  be  admitted  to  the  new  fellowship  and  main- 
tained in  good  standing  there.  These  differences 
sprang  up  in  the  Pentecostal  church,  and  among  those 
who  were  devoted  Christians,  and  among  the  very 
chief  of  them,  the  apostles  themselves.  Having  called 
our  attention  to  that  fact  John  Wesley  added:  "Nor 
does  it  appear  that  the  difference  which  then  began 
was  ever  entirely  removed.  We  do  not  find  that  even 
those  pillars  in  the  temple  of  God,  so  long  as  they  re- 
mained upon  earth,  were  ever  brought  to  think  alike, 
to  be  of  one  mind,  particularly  with  regard  to  the 
ceremonial  law.     It  is   therefore  no   way   surprising 

»  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  i,  p.  348. 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  67 

that  infinite  varieties  of  opinion  should  now  be  found 
in  the  Christian  Church."^ 

Just  as  there  are  infinite  varieties  in  rehgious  expe- 
rience, so  there  will  be  infinite  varieties  in  religious 
opinion  as  long  as  the  world  stands.  Until  all  eyes 
are  of  the  same  color  they  will  see  things  in  different 
light.  Until  all  ears  are  of  the  same  size  and  shape 
they  will  hear  the  same  thing  differently.  Until  all 
brains  are  of  exactly  the  same  convolutions  and  pro- 
portions men  will  come  to  different  conclusions  upon 
the  basis  of  the  same  data.  The  conclusion  of  the 
wise  man  will  differ  from  the  conclusion  of  the  fool, 
and  the  most  of  men  will  approximate  one  or  other  of 
these  conclusions  in  infinitely  various  degrees. 

It  was  an  old  maxim,  "Whatever  is  received,  is  re- 
ceived after  the  manner  or  nature  of  the  recipient." 
Just  as  surely  as  the  recipients  are  tall  and  short  and 
fat  and  lean  and  white  and  black  and  red  and  yellow 
and  brown,  just  so  surely  they  differ  in  their  manner 
and  nature  and  just  so  surely  they  will  differ  in  some 
and  in  many  if  not  all  of  their  opinions.  We  are  told 
that  no  two  blades  of  grass  are  alike  and  that  no  two 
leaves  on  an  oak  tree  are  exactly  alike,  and  we  know 
that  this  infinite  variety  of  nature  has  its  parallel  in 
the  world  of  men  and  in  the  realm  of  mind.  In  that 
case  how  can  anyone  expect  all  men  to  think  alike  or 
all  Christians  to  think  alike?  It  is  utterly  impossible, 
and  it  always  will  be  impossible.  Unity  of  spirit  must 
be  maintained  in  despite  of  varieties  of  judgment; 
that  is  the  only  possibility  of  continuous  fellowship  in 
a  universal  church.  Therefore  we  must  bear  and  forbear 
in  all  nonessentials  of  thought  and  speech  and  action. 

2  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  i,  p.  341. 


68  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Wesley  said,  "I  have  no  more  right  to  object  to  a 
man  for  holding  a  different  opinion  from  me,  than  I 
have  to  differ  with  a  man  because  he  wears  a  wig  and 
I  wear  my  own  hair."^  Many  people  are  not  as  wise  as 
John  Wesley  at  this  point.  They  object  to  any  man  who 
does  not  wear  his  hair  just  as  they  themselves  do.  They 
object  to  hair  that  is  too  long  or  hair  that  is  too  short  or 
hair  which  is  parted  in  the  middle.  Wesley  knew  that  just 
as  surely  as  the  outsides  of  men's  heads  are  not  all  alike 
and  there  are  black-headed  and  white-headed  and  red- 
headed and  bald-headed  men,  men  with  a  surplus  of  hair 
and  men  with  a  minimum  supply  and  men  with  wigs, 
so  surely  the  insides  of  men's  heads  are  not  all  alike. 
God  made  them  of  almost  infinite  variety.  Nothing 
could  be  clearer  than  the  absolute  impossibility  of 
bringing  all  men  to  think  alike  on  all  points  and  noth- 
ing could  be  clearer  than  that  God  never  intended 
that  they  should,  in  this  stage  of  their  existence  at 
least.  Let  us  recognize  this  fact  and  rejoice  in  it,  for 
it  means  a  fuller  and  richer  revelation  of  God  and  of 
God's  truth  through  the  church. 

God  has  revealed  himself  to  men  through  the  Bible; 
but  the  Bible  is  a  collection  of  books  representing  a 
great  variety  of  literature.  There  is  fundamental 
truth  in  the  Bible,  expressed  in  almost  infinite  diver- 
sity of  forms.  God  has  revealed  himself  to  men 
through  nature;  but  there  is  no  sameness  nor  staleness 
in  this  revelation.  The  infinite  variety  of  nature  is 
suggestive  of  the  infinite  resources  of  the  Creator  of 
all.  There  is  a  fundamental  type  of  American  life. 
Yet  the  Western  type  is  easily  distinguishable  from 
the  Eastern  type,  and  there  always  has  been  a  wide 

*  Leiievre,  John  Wesley,  p.  430. 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  69 

difference  between  the  North  and  the  South.  All  life 
is  varied  in  its  manifestation,  and  that  is  as  true  of 
the  religious  life  as  of  any  other.  Unity  in  variety  is 
evidently  the  purpose  of  God  in  the  formation  of  the 
church,  and  while  he  will  reveal  himself  through  the 
church  that  revelation  will  be  as  varied  as  are  his 
revelations  through  nature  and  in  the  Bible.  We 
ought  to  be  glad  that  this  is  so.  We  ought  to  see  that 
the  church  will  be  all  the  better  for  this  reason. 

Catholicity  is  impossible  without  variety,  and,  as 
Bishop  Gore  has  said,  "Christianity  is  really  a  catholic 
religion,  and  only  in  proportion  as  its  catholicity 
becomes  a  reality  is  its  true  power  and  richness  ex- 
hibited. Each  new  race  which  is  introduced  into  the 
church  not  only  itself  receives  the  blessings  of  our 
religion,  but  reacts  upon  it  to  bring  out  new  and 
unsuspected  aspects  and  beauties  of  its  truth  and 
influences.  .  .  .  How  impoverished  was  the  exhibition 
of  Christianity  which  the  Jewish  Christians  were 
capable  of  giving  by  themselves!  How  much  of  the 
treasures  of  wisdom  and  power  which  lie  hid  in  Christ 
awaited  the  Greek  intellect,  and  the  Roman  spirit  of 
government,  and  the  Teutonic  individuality,  and  the 
temper  and  character  of  the  Kelt  and  the  Slav,  before 
they  could  leap  into  light!  And  can  we  doubt  that 
now  again  not  only  would  Indians,  and  Japanese,  and 
Africans,  and  Chinamen  be  the  better  for  Christian- 
ity, but  that  Christianity  also  would  be  unspeakably 
the  richer  for  their  adhesion — for  the  gifts  which  the 
subtlety  of  India,  and  the  grace  of  Japan,  and  the 
silent  patience  of  China  are  capable  of  bringing  into 
the  city  of  God.?"^ 

*  Gore,  The  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  pp.  138,  139. 


70  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

We  need  to  realize  two  things:  that  Christians  are 
to  be  the  evangehsts  of  the  nations  and  that  when 
the  nations  are  evangelized  the  universal  Church  of 
Christ  will  be  neither  the  church  of  any  one  of  our 
present  nationalities  nor  the  church  of  any  one  of  our 
present  multiplicity  of  divisions.  It  will  be  a  church 
of  international  brotherhood  with  racial  and  creedal 
differences  tolerated  in  Christian  love.  No  one  will 
say  to  his  brother,  *'Know  the  Lord,"  for  all  will 
know  him,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest;  and  no  one 
will  say  to  his  brother,  "You  must  think  as  I  think," 
for  each  will  be  willing  to  grant  unto  others  the  same 
liberty  of  thought  which  he  claims  for  himself.  It  is 
the  only  basis  upon  which  Christendom  can  be  united. 

All  must  come  to  the  position  of  John  Wesley  when 
he  said:  "Does  the  love  of  God  constrain  thee  to  serve 
him  without  fear — to  rejoice  unto  him  with  reverence.'^ 
...  Is  thy  heart  right  toward  thy  neighbor?  Dost 
thou  love,  as  thyself,  all  mankind  without  exception? 
...  Give  me  thy  hand.  I  do  not  mean.  Be  of  my 
opinion.  You  need  not:  I  do  not  expect  or  desire  it. 
Neither  do  I  mean,  I  will  be  of  your  opinion.  I  can 
not.  It  does  not  depend  on  my  choice.  I  can  no 
more  think  than  I  can  see  or  hear  as  I  will.  Keep  you 
your  opinion:  I  mine:  and  that  as  steadily  as  ever. 
You  need  not  ever  endeavor  to  come  over  to  me,  or 
bring  me  over  to  you.  I  do  not  desire  you  to  dispute 
these  points,  or  to  hear  or  speak  one  word  concerning 
them.  Let  all  opinions  alone  on  one  side  and  the 
other:  only,  give  me  thine  hand."^  The  "opinions" 
which  John  Wesley  had  in  mind  when  he  wrote  those 
words  were  theological  opinions,  doctrines,  dogmas  of 

6  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  i,  p.  351. 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  71 

great  importance  and  great  dispute  in  his  day,  "such 
as  the  nature  and  use  of  the  moral  law,  the  eternal 
decrees  of  God,  the  sufficiency  and  efficacy  of  his 
grace,  and  the  perseverance  of  his  children."^ 

The  controversies  over  evolution  and  higher  criti- 
cism and  the  literal  or  symbolical  interpretations  of 
the  creed  in  our  own  day  have  been  no  more  vital  to 
us  than  these  issues  were  in  John  Wesley's  day,  and  in 
connection  with  the  controversy  over  the  higher 
criticism  Professor  Bowne  was  in  complete  accord 
with  the  spirit  of  Wesley  when  he  said:  "If  any  one 
cannot  believe  in  God  the  Father  and  in  his  Son  with- 
out believing  in  the  whale  of  Jonah  or  the  ass  that 
spoke,  or  the  talking  serpent  and  other  saving  truths 
of  that  kind,  I  should  say.  By  all  means  believe  in 
them.  If  these  are  the  only  things  that  hold  you  to 
the  deeper  truths  of  religion,  hold  on  to  them  with  all 
your  might;  only  you  must  not  insist  that  others  also 
must  believe  in  them.  So  far  the  church  may  go  in 
condescension  to  ignorance,  but  no  farther.  The 
church  should  always  be  a  church  for  the  ignorant, 
but  it  should  never  be  an  ignorant  church."^  That 
is  to  say,  the  wise  and  the  simple  must  dwell  together 
in  the  Christian  Church  in  brotherly  love,  although 
they  never  will  be  able  to  dwell  together  with  like 
opinions  in  matters  of  knowledge  and  faith.  It  is 
this  principle  of  individual  hberty  of  opinion  in  cor- 
porate harmony  of  spirit  which  alone  can  insure  a 
lasting  or  a  universal  church. 

It  was  upon  this  basis  that  the  Methodist  Church, 
the   church   of  John   Wesley,   was   founded;   and   we 

'  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  i,  p.  341. 

^  Bowne,  Studies  in  Christianity,  p.  397. 


72  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

submit  that  this  is  the  only  basis  upon  which  a  uni- 
versal church  ever  can  be  established.  In  the  first 
Methodist  Conference  ever  held,  in  London  in  1744, 
the  question  was  raised,  "How  far  does  each  preacher 
agree  to  submit  to  the  unanimous  judgment  of  the 
rest?"  and  the  answer  was  made  and  recorded,  "In 
speculative  things  each  can  only  submit  as  far  as  his 
judgment  shall  be  convinced;  in  every  practical  point, 
as  far  as  we  can,  without  wounding  our  several  con- 
sciences."^ In  the  fourth  Conference,  held  in  1747, 
the  same  question  was  raised  and  the  same  answer 
was  made,  and  then  it  was  asked,  "Can  a  Christian 
submit  any  further  than  this  to  any  man  or  number 
of  men  upon  earth  .f^"  and  the  answer  was  recorded, 
"It  is  undeniably  plain  he  cannot,  either  to  Pope, 
council,  bishop,  or  convocation.  This  is  that  grand 
principle  of  every  man's  right  to  private  judgment. 
.  .  .  Every  man  must  think  for  himself,  since  every 
man  must  give  an  account  for  himseK  to  God."^ 

Notice  how  that  question  was  worded.  It  was  not. 
How  far  does  each  preacher  agree  to  submit  to  the 
majority  opinion  of  his  brethren.'^  That  is  the  way 
in  which  we  settle  most  of  the  practical  questions 
with  which  we  deal  to-day,  by  a  majority  vote  to 
which  all  submit.  That  was  not  the  question  raised 
in  that  first  Methodist  Conference.  The  question  was, 
"How  far  does  each  preacher  agree  to  submit  to  the 
unanimous  judgment  of  the  rest.^^"  One  lone  preacher 
on  one  side  and  the  whole  Conference  unanimous  on 
the  other  side!  What  did  that  mean.?  It  meant  that 
every  Methodist  preacher  was  expected  to  have  an 

8  Stevens,  History  of  Methodism,  vol.  i,  p.  212. 
3  Ibid.,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  319. 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  73 

individually  convinced  judgment  and  to  maintain  an 
individually  unwounded  conscience,  even  if  he  had  to 
stand  alone  against  the  unanimous  judgment  and 
conscience  of  the  brethren.  That  was  the  only  posi- 
tion the  early  Methodists  agreed  to  respect.  In  the 
fourth  Conference  they  extended  the  principle  to  all 
Christians.  They  ranked  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment and  of  the  individual  conscience  far  above  the 
necessity  or  the  desirability  of  absolute  unanimity  of 
either  opinion  or  action.  It  is  the  only  position  cap- 
able of  maintenance  in  a  church  with  a  universal 
destination. 

Luther  made  the  right  of  private  judgment  in  all 
holy  things  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation.  He  never  could  believe  that  any  Pope 
or  any  man  was  infallible.  He  never  could  be  per- 
suaded that  any  church  council  was  infallible.  The 
twenty-ninth  of  his  theses  declared,  "It  is  open  to  us 
to  set  aside  the  Councils,  freely  to  question  their 
actions  and  judge  their  decrees  and  to  profess  with 
all  confidence  whatever  appears  to  be  the  truth 
whether  it  has  been  approved  or  reproved  of  any 
Council."^"  John  Wesley  had  no  higher  opinion  of 
church  councils  than  Martin  Luther  had.  He  said  of 
them,  "How  has  one  Council  been  perpetually  cursing 
another,  and  delivering  all  over  to  Satan,  whether 
predecessors  or  contemporaries,  who  did  not  implicitly 
receive  their  determinations,  though  generally  trifling, 
sometimes  false,  and  frequently  unintelligible  or  self- 
contradictory  !"" 

Infallibility  is  not  to  be  reached  by  any  summing 

1"  Grisar,  Luther,  vol.  vi,  p.  300. 

11  Wesley,  Journal,  Standard  Edition,  iv,  p.  97. 


74  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

up  of  fallible  judgments.  Final  authority  in  matters 
of  truth  is  not  to  be  attained  by  any  rounding  up  of  a 
majority  vote  in  any  ecclesiastical  body  made  up  of 
men  some  of  whom  are  grossly  ignorant,  and  many  of 
whom  are  greatly  prejudiced,  and  all  of  whom  are 
confessedly  fallible.  That  is  the  trouble  with  all  the 
General  Councils  and  Assemblies  of  Divines  who  have 
essayed  to  formulate  and  finally  fix  the  Christian 
faith.  They  have  not  been  adequate  to  the  task. 
If  we  could  have  an  adequately  representative  body, 
made  up  of  perfectly  holy  men,  free  from  all  jealousies 
and  antipathies  and  individual  idiosyncrasies  and 
prejudices,  absolutely  devoted  to  the  truth,  and  the 
truth  alone,  and  master  of  all  the  knowledge  available 
to  that  age,  such  a  body  might  formulate  a  creed 
which  would  be  adequate  for  their  own  time;  but 
that  creed  would  be  antiquated  as  soon  as  any  new 
truth  had  been  discovered  which  would  necessitate  a 
readjustment  of  thought  along  the  whole  line. 

Such  a  body  of  men  never  was  assembled  in  all  the 
history  of  the  world,  and  it  never  will  be  to  the  end 
of  time.  All  the  creed-making  councils  and  assemblies 
of  the  church  have  fallen  far  below  this  ideal.  Some 
of  them  have  been  so  bad  that  they  have  fitted  the 
description  given  by  Gregory  of  Nazianzen  to  the 
assemblies  of  bishops  in  his  day.  He  said:  "I  never 
have  known  one  to  terminate  well.  They  strive  only 
for  power.  They  behave  like  angry  lions  to  the  small 
and  like  fawning  spaniels  to  the  great.  It  would  seem 
as  though  a  herald  had  convoked  to  the  Council  all 
the  gluttons,  villains,  liars  and  false  swearers  of  the 
empire.  I  will  never  more  sit  in  these  assemblies  of 
cranes  and  geese." 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  75 

One  trembles  to  think  that  the  formulation  of  the 
faith  has  been  intrusted  to  such  hands,  and  one  re- 
joices to  believe  that  the  truth  has  come  out  of  them 
in  as  good  condition  as  it  has.  Other  councils  have 
been  better  than  these,  but  in  some  of  them  we  read 
of  decisions  reached  by  fraud  and  bribery  and  in  the 
best  of  them  we  read  of  different  parties  and  fierce 
and  prolonged  debates  and  final  compromises  to 
obtain  majority  votes,  and  we  sympathize  fully  with 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  when  he  says, 

"Not  from  the  conclave  where  the  holy  men 
Glare  on  each  other,  as  with  angry  eyes 
They  battle  for  God's  glory  and  their  own. 
Till,  sick  of  wordy  strife,  a  show  of  hands 
Fixes  the  faith  of  ages  yet  miborn — 
Ah,  not  from  these  the  listening  soul  can  hear 
The  Father's  voice  that  speaks  itself  divinel''^^ 

The  Thirty-nine  Articles  are  right,  therefore,  in  de- 
claring of  the  General  Councils  that  "forasmuch  as 
they  be  an  assembly  of  men,  whereof  all  be  not  gov- 
erned with  the  Spirit  and  Word  of  God,  they  may  err, 
and  sometimes  have  erred,  even  in  things  pertaining 
unto  God,"  and  Luther  was  right  in  asserting  over 
against  all  their  authority  the  liberty  of  his  individual 
conscience:  "Very  well,  let  them  decree  and  say  what 
they  will,  still  say  I,  Thou  canst  not  rest  thy  confi- 
dence thereon,  nor  satisfy  thy  conscience;  thou  must 
thyself  decide;  thy  neck  is  at  stake,  thy  life  is  at  stake, 
therefore  must  God  say  to  thee  in  thy  heart.  This  is 
God's  Word,  else  it  is  still  undecided. "^^ 

'^  O.   W.   Holmes,   Complete  Poetical  Works,   Cambridge  Edition,  p. 
183. 

"  Quoted  in  Dods,  The  Bible:  Its  Origin  and  Nature,  pp.  38,  39. 


76  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Truth  is  not  determined  by  a  majority  vote.  The 
majority  was  against  Jesus,  but  he  had  the  truth  nev- 
ertheless. The  majority  decided  that  Arius  was  right 
and  Athanasius  was  wrong;  but  Athanasius  stood 
alone  against  the  world  until  the  truth  had  proved 
itself  mighty  enough  to  prevail.  The  majority  de- 
cided that  the  Copernican  astronomy  was  wrong  and 
that  Galileo  must  recant  his  heresy  that  the  sun  was 
the  center  of  our  system  and  that  the  earth  moved 
around  it,  and  Galileo  recanted,  but  tradition  affirms 
that  he  said  at  the  end  of  his  recantation,  "It  still 
moves";  and  so  it  does,  in  spite  of  the  majority  vote. 
Questions  of  fact  are  not  to  be  settled  by  those  who 
are  ignorant  of  the  facts,  even  though  they  may  have 
a  majority  vote.  Majorities  may  be  in  the  right,  and 
if  they  are  the  individual  can  go  with  them  in  all 
good  conscience;  but  if  the  majority  seem  to  him  to 
be  in  the  wrong  then  it  is  his  right  and  it  is  his  duty 
to  protest  in  the  name  of  his  own  reason  and  of  his  own 
conscience  and  to  allow  no  authority  to  coerce  him  in 
these  things. 

The  judicious  Hooker  in  his  Ecclesiastical  Polity  has 
stated  the  truth  in  this  matter:  "Now,  it  is  not  re- 
quired, nor  can  be  exacted  at  our  hands,  that  we 
should  yield  unto  anything  our  assent,  than  such  as 
doth  answer  the  evidence  which  is  to  be  had  of  that 
we  assent  unto.  .  .  .  For  men  to  be  tied  and  led  by 
authority  as  it  were,  with  a  kind  of  captivity  of  judg- 
ment, and  though  there  be  reason  to  the  contrary  not 
to  listen  unto  it,  but  to  follow  like  beasts  the  first  in 
the  herd,  they  know  not  nor  care  not  whither — this 
were  brutish.  Again,  that  authority  of  men  should 
prevail  with  men  either  against  or  above  reason  is  no 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  77 

part  of  our  belief.  'Companies  of  learned  men,'  be 
they  never  so  great  and  reverend,  are  to  yield  unto 
reason;  the  weight  whereof  is  no  whit  prejudiced  by 
the  simplicity  of  his  person  which  doth  allege  it,  but 
being  found  to  be  sound  and  good,  the  bare  opinion  of 
men  to  the  contrary  must  of  necessity  stoop  and  give 
place."!^ 

It  is  the  perpetual  vindication  of  the  privilege  and 
principle  of  the  humble  and  sincere  conscientious  ob- 
jector in  all  affairs  of  church  and  state.  That  man 
who  in  the  assumption  of  his  personal  infallibility  and 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  possession  of  the  majority 
power  attempts  to  excommunicate  or  persecute  or 
crush  the  conscientious  objector  is  as  un-Protestant  as 
he  is  un-Christian,  and  his  position  will  make  a  truly 
catholic  church  forever  impossible.  John  Wesley  set 
forth  the  only  pronunciamento  for  such  a  church  when 
he  said:  "Every  one  must  follow  the  dictates  of  his 
own  conscience,  in  simplicity  and  godly  sincerity.  He 
must  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind,  and  then 
act  according  to  the  best  light  he  has.  Nor  has  any 
creature  power  to  constrain  another  to  walk  by  his 
own  rule.  God  has  given  no  right  to  any  of  the  chil- 
dren of  men,  thus  to  lord  it  over  the  conscience  of  his 
brethren;  but  every  man  must  judge  for  himself,  as 
every  man  must  give  an  account  of  himself  unto 
God."^^ 

Wesley  phrased  the  fundamental  principle  of  a 
genuinely  catholic  spirit  when  he  said:  "Think  your- 
self and  let  think.     Use  no  constraint  in  matters  of 


"  Hooker,  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  book  II,  chap,  vii,  paragraphs  5,  6. 
Works,  vol.  i,  pp.  323-325. 

1^  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  i,  p.  349. 


78  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

religion. "^^  John  Wesley  said:  "Every  wise  man  will 
allow  others  the  same  liberty  of  thinking,  which  he 
desires  they  should  allow  him;  and  will  no  more  insist 
on  their  embracing  his  opinions  than  he  would  have 
them  to  insist  on  his  embracing  theirs.  He  bears  with 
those  who  differ  from  him,  and  only  asks  him  with 
whom  he  desires  to  unite  in  love  that  single  question, 
Is  thy  heart  right,  as  my  heart  is  with  thy  heart?"^'^ 

It  was  in  this  spirit  that  Wesley  praised  the  saintly 
Roman  Catholic  Fenelon,  and  held  him  as  a  model 
minister  and  Christian  man.  It  was  in  this  spirit 
that  he  published  and  scattered  abroad  among  his 
people  the  biographies  of  Roman  Catholic  saints,  like 
the  Spaniard  Gregory  and  Madam  Guy  on.  It  was  in 
this  spirit  that  he  wrote  the  life  of  a  saintly  Unitarian 
lady  and  circulated  the  tract  among  his  people  for 
their  spiritual  good.  It  was  in  this  spirit  that  he  pub- 
lished The  Life  of  Thomas  Firmin,  a  Unitarian,  and 
said  in  the  Preface  to  it:  "I  had  long  settled  it  in  my 
mind  that  the  entertaining  wrong  notions  concerning 
the  Trinity  was  inconsistent  with  real  piety.  But  I 
cannot  argue  against  matter  of  fact.  I  dare  not  deny 
that  Mr.  Firmin  was  a  pious  man,  although  his  notions 
of  the  Trinity  were  quite  erroneous."^^ 

It  was  in  this  spirit  that  Wesley  wrote  in  his  Jour- 
nal, "I  read  to-day  a  part  of  the  Meditations  of  Mar- 
cus Antonius.  What  a  strange  emperor!  And  what  a 
strange  heathen!  Giving  thanks  to  God  for  all  the 
good  things  he  enjoyed.  ...  I  make  no  doubt  but 
this  is  one  of  those  many  who  shall  come  from  the 


16  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  i,  p.  336, 

"  Ibid.,  p.  348. 

"  Ibid.,  Mason  edition,  1831,  vol.  xiv,  p.  307. 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  79 

east  and  the  west  and  sit  down  with  Abraham,  Isaac, 
and  Jacob,  while  the  children  of  the  kingdom,  nominal 
Christians,  are  shut  out."^^  Wesley  read  Homer  and 
found  a  vein  of  piety  running  through  his  whole  work.^" 
He  believed  that  the  Montanists,  "in  the  second  and 
third  centuries,  were  real  scriptural  Christians.  "^^  In 
his  Christian  Library  he  published  a  manual  of  Devo- 
tions for  Every  Day  of  the  Week  and  the  Great  Festivals, 
and  took  it  from  a  work  by  John  Austin,  a  Roman 
Catholic  writer  of  the  preceding  century. 

He  wandered  through  the  ruins  of  a  Carthusian 
monastery  and  then  reflected,  'Who  knows  but  some 
of  the  poor,  superstitious  monks  who  once  served 
God  here  according  to  the  light  they  had,  may  meet 
us,  by-and-by,  in  that  house  of  God  not  made 
with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens.f^"^^  He  read  the 
Journal  of  William  Edmundson,  a  Quaker  preacher, 
and  then  wrote  in  his  own  Journal,  "If  the  original 
equaled  the  picture  (which  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt), 
what  an  amiable  man  was  this!  His  opinions  I  leave; 
but  what  a  spirit  was  here!  What  faith,  love,  gentle- 
ness, long-suffering!  Could  mistake  send  such  a  man 
as  this  to  hell?  Not  so.  I  am  so  far  from  believing 
this  that  I  scruple  not  to  say,  'Let  my  soul  be  with 
the  soul  of  Wilham  Edmundson  !"'2^  He  had  no 
doubt  that  godly  men  were  saved,  even  if  they  be- 
longed to  the  Unitarian  Church  or  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic Church,  or  even  if  they  were  Quakers,  or  even  if 
they  were  heathen. 

1'  Wesley,  Journal,  Standard  Edition,  iii,  p.  215. 
20  Wesley,  Ibid.,  p.  366. 
"  Wesley,  Ibid.,  p.  490. 
22  Wesley,  Ibid.,  p.  209. 
^  Wesley,  Ibid.,  v,  p.  137. 


80  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

He  would  have  sympathized  with  Alexander  Bal- 
main  Bruce,  of  whom  they  tell  the  characteristic  story 
that  he  was  present  at  a  student  discussion  of  the 
question  of  the  fate  of  the  heathen  and  the  issue  was 
raised  as  to  whether  a  noble  soul  like  Socrates  could 
be  denied  salvation.  One  said,  "Omnipotence  can  do 
anything."  Another  objected,  "Omnipotence  surely 
can  do  nothing  unjust."  Yet  another  suggested, 
"Omnipotence  could  not  condemn  a  man  of  lofty 
character."  To  this  it  was  answered,  "He  might  do 
so,  if  he  did  not  approve  of  his  goodness."  Then 
Bruce  came  forward  with  his  fist  clenched  and  closed 
the  debate  with  this  characteristic  utterance,  "I  say, 
Daniel,  God  couldn't  damn  Socrates."-*  Of  course 
not.  Neither  could  nor  would  John  Wesley.  He  said, 
"The  thing  which  I  was  greatly  afraid  of,  all  this 
time,  and  which  I  resolved  to  use  every  possible  means 
of  preventing,  was  a  narrowness  of  spirit,  .  .  .  that 
miserable  bigotry  which  makes  many  so  unready  to 
believe  that  there  is  any  work  of  God  but  among 
themselves."^^    He  believed  that 

God  sends  his  teachers  unto  every  age, 

To  every  clime,  and  every  race  of  men, 

With  revelations  fitted  to  their  growth 

And  shape  of  mind,  nor  gives  the  realm  of  Truth 

Into  the  selfish  rule  of  one  sole  race: 

Therefore  each  form  of  worship  that  hath  swayed 

The  life  of  man,  and  given  it  to  grasp 

The  master-key  of  knowledge — reverence — 

Infolds  some  germs  of  goodness  and  of  right. ^^ 


2^  Henderson,   The  Religious  Controversies  of  Scotland,  p.  251. 
^  Methodist  Review,  vol.  Ixxxi,  p.  514. 

'"'  Lowell,  Complete  Poetical  Works,  Cambridge  edition.     Rhoecus,  p. 
46. 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  81 

We  can  understand  how  it  could  be  said  of  John 
Wesley,  "No  reformer  the  world  has  ever  seen  so 
united  faithfulness  to  the  essential  doctrines  of  revela- 
tion with  charity  toward  men  of  every  church  and 
creed,"^^  and  we  can  agree  with  the  conclusion  of 
Professor  Winchester,  who  affirms  of  Wesley,  "The 
arch-heretics  of  history,  Montanus  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, Pelagius  of  the  fifth  century,  Servetus  of  the 
sixteenth  century — he  declared  that,  in  his  opinion, 
they  were  all  holy  men,  who,  at  the  last,  with  all  the 
good  men  of  the  heathen  world,  Socrates,  and  Plato, 
and  Trajan,  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  would  come  from 
the  east  and  the  west  to  sit  down  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Religious  history  from  the  dawn  of  Chris- 
tianity to  the  present  day  may  be  searched  in  vain  to 
find  another  leader  of  equal  prominence  and  equal 
positiveness  of  personal  opinion  who  showed  such 
genuine  liberality  as  the  great  founder  of  Method- 
ism."^^ 

Dean  Stanley  used  to  claim  that  John  Wesley  was 
the  founder  of  the  Broad  Church.  The  church  which 
he  actually  founded  was  put  upon  a  basis  broad 
enough  for  the  universal  Church  of  Christ.  Just 
three  years  before  his  death  he  said  of  it:  "One  cir- 
cumstance is  quite  peculiar  to  the  people  called  Meth- 
odists; that  is,  the  terms  upon  which  any  person  may 
be  admitted  into  their  society.  They  do  not  impose, 
in  order  to  their  admission,  any  opinions  whatever. 
Let  them  hold  particular  or  general  redemption,  abso- 
lute or  conditional  decree;  let  them  be  Churchmen  or 
Dissenters,   Presbyterians   or   Independents,   it   is   no 


"  Meredith,  The  Real  John  Wesley,  p.  160. 
28  Winchester,  The  Life  of  John  Wesley,  p.  212. 


I^l00(o 


82  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

obstacle.  Let  them  choose  one  mode  of  baptism  or 
another,  it  is  no  bar  to  their  admission.  The  Presby- 
terian may  be  a  Presbyterian  still;  the  Independent  or 
Anabaptist  use  his  own  mode  of  worship.  So  may 
the  Quaker;  and  none  will  contend  with  him  about  it. 
They  think  and  let  think.  One  condition  and  one 
only  is  required — a  real  desire  to  save  their  soul.  .  .  . 
Is  there  any  other  society  in  Great  Britain  or  Ireland 
that  is  so  remote  from  bigotry  .f'  that  is  so  truly  of  a 
catholic  spirit?  so  ready  to  admit  all  serious  persons 
without  distinction?  Where  is  there  such  another 
society  in  Europe?  in  the  habitable  world?  I  know 
none.    Let  any  man  show  it  to  me  that  can."^^ 

Those  words  were  written  in  an  intolerant  age  and 
the  greatness  of  John  Wesley  at  this  point  is  the  more 
apparent  in  the  light  of  that  fact;  for  he  declared  that 
a  Christian  church  ought  to  be  a  church  of  absolute 
tolerance  in  all  nonessentials  in  religious  worship  and 
theological  opinion.  Wesley  wrote  in  his  Journal^ 
December  3,  1776,  "O  that  all  men  would  sit  as  loose 
to  opinions  as  I  do;  that  they  would  think  and  let 
think"  ;^'^  and  that  motto  might  be  made  the  Magna 
Charta  of  individual  liberty  in  the  universal  church. 
Christians  think — that  ought  to  be  true  of  them  first 
of  all.  They  ought  not  to  adopt  their  opinions  with- 
out thinking  and  simply  because  their  fathers  have 
held  them.  They  ought  not  to  come  to  any  final 
conclusions  in  their  faith  without  serious  and  studious 
and  adequate  research.  Then  it  ought  to  be  equally 
true  of  them  that  they  allow  others  to  think  for  them- 
selves  and   come   to   their   own   conclusions;   and,   if 

29  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  vii,  p.  321. 

30  Wesley,  Journal,  vi,  p.  134. 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  83 

their  conclusions  differ  with  those  they  themselves 
have  reached,  abate  no  whit  of  their  fellowship  with 
them  on  that  ground.  That  is  the  high  plane  upon 
which  any  universal  church  must  be  founded. 

When  John  Wesley  wrote  his  treatise  on  The  Char- 
acter of  a  Methodist  he  began  with  these  words,  "The 
distinguishing  marks  of  a  Methodist  are  not  his  opin- 
ions of  any  sort.  .  .  .  Whosoever,  therefore,  imagines 
a  Methodist  is  a  man  of  such  or  such  an  opinion  is 
grossly  ignorant  of  the  whole  affair.  ...  As  to  all 
opinions  which  do  not  strike  at  the  root  of  Christian- 
ity, we  think  and  let  think.  So  that,  whatsoever  they 
are,  whether  right  or  wrong,  they  are  no  distinguishing 
marks  of  a  Methodist."^^  Up  in  Glasgow  John  Wesley 
wrote  in  his  Journal  in  1788:  "There  is  no  other  reli- 
gious society  under  heavefn  which  requires  nothing  of 
men,  in  order  to  their  admission  into  it,  but  a  desire 
to  save  their  souls.  Look  all  around  you.  You  can- 
not be  admitted  into  the  church  or  society  of  the 
Presbyterians,  Anabaptists,  Quakers,  or  any  others, 
unless  you  hold  the  same  opinions  with  them,  and 
adhere  to  the  same  mode  of  worship.  The  Methodists 
alone  do  not  insist  on  your  holding  this  or  that  opinion; 
but  they  think  and  let  think!  Neither  do  they  impose 
any  particular  mode  of  worship;  but  you  may  con- 
tinue to  worship  in  your  former  manner,  be  it  what  it 
may.  Now,  I  do  not  know  any  other  religious  society, 
either  ancient  or  modern,  wherein  such  liberty  of 
conscience  is  now  allowed,  or  has  been  allowed,  since  the 
age  of  the  apostles.  Here  is  our  glorying;  and  a  glory- 
ing peculiar  to  us.  What  society  shares  it  with  us?"^^ 

31  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  v,  pp.  240-241. 
^  Wesley,  Journal,  vii,  p.  389. 


84  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

A  year  later  and  less  than  two  years  before  his 
death,  down  at  Redruth  in  Cornwall,  Wesley  wrote 
in  his  Journal,  "I  still  aver  I  never  read  or  heard  of, 
either  in  ancient  or  modern  history,  any  other  church 
which  builds  on  so  broad  a  foundation  as  the  Meth- 
odists do;  which  requires  of  its  members  no  conform- 
ity either  in  opinions  or  modes  of  worship,  but  barely 
this  one  thing:  to  fear  God  and  work  righteousness."^^ 

His  advice  to  his  people  always  was,  "Use  every 
ordinance  which  you  believe  is  of  God;  but  beware 
of  narrowness  of  spirit  toward  those  who  use  them 
not.  Conform  yourself  to  those  modes  of  worship 
which  you  approve;  yet  love  as  brethren  those  who 
cannot  conform.  Lay  so  much  stress  upon  opinions, 
that  all  your  own,  if  it  be  possible,  may  agree  with 
truth  and  reason;  but  have  a  care  of  anger,  dislike,  or 
contempt  toward  those  whose  opinions  differ  from 
yours.  .  .  .  Condemn  no  man  for  not  thinking  as 
you  think:  let  every  one  enjoy  the  full  and  free  liberty 
of  thinking  for  himself:  let  every  man  use  his  own 
judgment,  since  every  man  must  give  an  account  of 
himself  to  God.  Abhor  every  approach,  in  any  kind 
or  degree,  to  the  spirit  of  persecution.  If  you  cannot 
reason  or  persuade  a  man  into  the  truth,  never  at- 
tempt to  force  him  into  it."^'' 

That  is  not  the  spirit  of  the  Vatican  decree  of  1870, 
which  asserted  the  papal  infallibility  and  closed  with 
these  words,  "If  anyone  shall  oppose  this  our  decision, 
which  God  forbid,  let  him  be  accursed,"  that  is,  let 
him  be  damned,  let  him  be  anathema  (anathema  sit). 
It  is  not  the  spirit  of  the  Athanasian  creed,  which 

^'  Wesley,  Journal,  viii,  p.  5. 
**  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  v,  p.  253. 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  85 

begins  by  saying,  "Whoever  will  be  saved,  before  all 
things  it  is  necessary  that  he  hold  the  Catholic  faith; 
which  faith  except  every  one  do  keep  whole  and  unde- 
filed,  without  doubt  he  shall  perish  everlastingly," 
and  which  ends  by  saying,  "This  is  the  Catholic  faith; 
which  except  a  man  believe  faithfully  he  cannot  be 
saved." 

What  did  John  Wesley  say  about  the  Athanasian 
creed?  He  said,  "I  am  far  from  saying  he  who  does 
not  assent  to  the  creed  commonly  ascribed  to  Athana- 
sius  shall  without  doubt  perish  everlastingly."^^ 
So  is  every  sensible  and  tolerant  Christian  man; 
for  assent  to  any  creed  never  will  save  a  man  and 
failure  to  assent  to  any  creed  never  will  damn  a  man, 
if  he  be  a  lover  of  the  truth  and  has  honest  scruples 
concerning  any  statement  in  it.  Augustine  did  not 
believe  that,  and  he  invoked  the  civil  power  to  crush 
out  all  schism  and  heresy.  Roman  Catholicism  did 
not  believe  that,  and  it  made  the  Spanish  Inquisition 
a  chief  defense  of  the  church.  John  Calvin  did  not 
believe  that,  and  he  hoped  that  Servetus  might  never 
be  allowed  to  leave  Geneva  alive.  Servetus  had  writ- 
ten him,  "Though  I  believe  the  Father  is  God,  the 
Son  is  God,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God,  yet  I  scruple 
using  the  words  'Trinity'  and  'Persons,'  because  I  do 
not  find  those  terms  in  the  Bible." 

What  did  John  Wesley  say  about  that.^^  He  said: 
"I  dare  not  insist  upon  any  one's  using  the  words 
'Trinity'  or  'Person.'  I  use  them  myself  without  any 
scruple  concerning  them,  because  I  know  of  none 
better;  but  if  any  man  has  any  scruple  concerning 
them,  who  shall  constrain  him  to  use  them?     I  can- 

**  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  ii,  p.  21. 


86  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

not:  much  less  would  I  bum  a  man  alive,  and  that 
with  moist  green  wood,  for  saying  he  had  such 
scruple. "^^  The  Puritan  Fathers  drove  Roger  Wil- 
liams into  the  wilderness,  where  for  fourteen  weeks 
he  knew  not  "what  bread  or  bed  did  mean."  The 
Presbyterians  tried  Albert  Barnes  for  heresy  because 
he  held  to  the  governmental  theory  of  the  atonement. 
The  Methodists  expelled  Dr.  Thomas  from  their  con- 
nection because  he  could  not  believe  in  the  eternal 
torments  of  literal  hell-fire,  and  a  Methodist  minister 
cited  Professor  Bowne  to  a  heresy  trial  upon  points 
nonessential  to  salvation.  But  a  Methodist  Confer- 
ence, in  the  true  spirit  of  Wesley,  promptly  acquitted 
him. 

What  did  John  Wesley  say  about  all  of  this?  He 
said:  "Beware  you  are  not  a  fiery,  persecuting  enthu- 
siast. Do  not  imagine  that  God  has  called  you  (just 
contrary  to  the  spirit  of  him  you  call  your  Master)  to 
destroy  men's  lives,  and  not  to  save  them.  Never 
dream  of  forcing  men  into  the  ways  of  God.  Think 
yourself  and  let  think.  Use  no  constraint  in  matters 
of  religion.  Even  those  who  are  farthest  out  of  the 
way  never  compel  to  come  in  by  any  other  means 
than  reason,  truth,  and  love."^^  It  is  this  tolerance 
in  religious  belief  which  is  of  the  very  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity and  a  necessary  prerequisite  for  a  universal 
church.  Intolerance  is  un-Christian  as  well  as  unwise 
and  unjust  and  unkind;  but  it  is  not  uncommon,  even 
among  those  who  profess  to  be  very  pious  people. 

Religion  was  intended  to  bind  man  to  God  and  to 
bind  men  together;  but  some  men  make  their  very 

^  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  ii,  p.  21. 
"  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  i,  p.  336. 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  87 

religiousness  a  reason  for  their  persecution  of  their 
equally  religious  brothers.  The  Master  gave  his  dis- 
ciples two  sacraments  as  the  symbols  of  their  union 
with  each  other  and  with  him;  and  these  sacraments 
of  love  and  life  have  been  made  causes  of  separation 
and  subjects  of  most  bitter  controversy  and  mutual 
anathema.  The  church  has  been  divided  on  the  ques- 
tion of  transubstantiation  and  the  method  of  bap- 
tism. The  very  things  intended  to  bring  the  Christians 
into  closest  communion  with  each  other  have  served 
to  make  the  most  lasting  divisions  among  them. 

Jeremy  Taylor  said,  rightly  enough:  "It  is  not  the 
differing  opinions  that  is  the  cause  of  the  present  rup- 
tures, but  want  of  charity.  .  .  .  There  is  no  cure  for 
us  but  piety  and  charity.  .  .  .  All  these  mischiefs 
proceed  not  from  this,  that  all  men  are  not  of  one 
mind,  for  that  is  neither  necessary  nor  possible,  but 
that  every  opinion  is  made  an  article  of  faith,  every 
article  is  a  ground  for  a  quarrel,  every  quarrel  makes  a 
faction,  every  faction  is  zealous,  and  all  zeal  pretends 
for  God,  and  whatever  is  for  God  cannot  be  too  much. 
We  by  this  time  are  come  to  that  pass,  we  think  we 
love  not  God  except  we  hate  our  brother;  and  we  have 
not  the  virtue  of  religion  unless  we  persecute  all  reli- 
gions but  our  own:  for  lukewarmness  is  so  odious  to 
God  and  man,  that  we,  proceeding  furiously  upon 
these  mistakes,  by  supposing  we  preserve  the  body, 
we  destroy  the  soul  of  religion;  or  by  being  zealous  for 
faith,  or  which  is  all  one,  for  that  which  we  mistake 
for  faith,  we  are  cold  in  charity,  and  so  lose  the  reward 
for  both."38 


'^  Jeremy  Taylor,  "The  Liberty  of  Prophesying,"  Works,  vol.  v,  p. 
368. 


88  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

There  is  the  natural  history  of  the  genesis  of  many 
an  ardent  persecutor  of  heretics  in  the  Christian 
Church.  A  beginning  zeal  for  religion  and  then  reli- 
gion identified  with  orthodoxy,  and  then  orthodoxy 
made  to  cover  not  only  the  essentials  of  the  faith  but 
also  everything  else  which  the  self-styled  orthodox 
may  believe,  including  all  questions  of  higher  criti- 
cism and  historical  fact;  and,  finally,  with  the  assump- 
tion of  personal  infallibility  in  the  whole  field,  the 
arrogation  of  ecclesiastical  authority  to  maintain  it  in 
its  integrity  and  purity,  heresy  trials,  church  divisions, 
charity  cold,  religion  dead.  The  professional  heresy- 
hunter  seldom  or  never  maintains  any  spiritual  leader- 
ship in  the  church. 

It  was  against  him  and  his  whole  tribe  that  Pro- 
fessor Bowne  used  to  inveigh  with  his  characteristic 
irony  in  these  words:  "Having  themselves  little  knowl- 
edge and  no  intellectual  interest,  they  desire  to  stand 
in  the  old  paths,  that  is,  the  old  formulas,  or,  still 
more  accurately,  the  old  phrases.  All  that  is  needed 
for  this  is  a  competent  and  active  ignorance  and  a 
belligerent  conceit.  With  this  furnishing,  they  read 
out  to  their  own  satisfaction  all  modern  science,  mod- 
ern history,  modern  sociology,  modern  political  econ- 
omy, and  modern  thought  in  general;  and  know  not 
meanwhile  that  they  are  poor  and  miserable  and  blind 
and  naked,  and  know  nothing  as  they  ought  to  know 
it.  This  has  been  so  largely  the  character  of  self- 
styled  orthodoxy  that  one  might  almost  have  ground 
for  a  suit  for  slander  or  libel  at  being  called  ortho- 
dox."39 

All  irony  aside.  Professor  Bowne  would  have  been 


^  Bowne,  Studies  in  Christianity,  p.  376. 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  89 

among  the  first  to  acknowledge  that  there  were  ortho- 
dox people  who  were  intelligent  and  tolerant  and 
religious.  He  believed,  however,  that  their  ortho- 
doxy was  to  be  measured  not  by  their  tenacity  of 
adherence  to  old  formulas  or  old  phrases  but  by  their 
absolute  loyalty  to  the  truth  as  God  had  given  them 
to  see  it.  That  loyalty  would  keep  them  in  touch 
with  the  best  in  the  past  and  at  the  same  time  it 
would  keep  them  in  line  with  all  progress  toward  a 
better  future.  It  would  be  perfectly  consistent  with 
an  absolute  tolerance  toward  those  who  had  not  yet 
arrived  at  its  own  stage  of  enlightenment,  and  with  a 
cherished  hope  of  added  revelation  in  the  days  to 
come. 

Our  creeds  never  will  be  perfect  or  complete,  since 
they  must  be  formulated  by  finite  minds.  No  man 
and  no  body  of  men  ever  will  be  superior  to  all  mis- 
understanding and  mistake.  It  is  not  necessary  that 
we  have  all  of  the  truth  in  order  to  be  saved.  It  is 
necessary  that  we  love  the  truth  and  seek  after  it 
with  all  the  heart  and  mind  and  soul  and  strength. 
The  amount  of  truth  a  man  possesses  may  have  been 
determined  for  him  by  his  opportunities  or  his  en- 
vironment. The  love  of  the  truth  will  save  him,  even 
if  he  attains  to  but  an  infinitesimal  portion  of  the 
truth  itself;  for  the  love  of  the  truth  determines  his 
character,  and  his  creed  does  not.  Therefore  Profes- 
sor Bowne  was  altogether  right  when  he  declared: 
"Let  us  say,  then,  with  all  conviction,  that  simple 
intellectual  assent  to  a  dogma  can  never  be  a  ground 
for  acceptance  with  God,  and  that  simple  rejection  of 
a  dogma  can  never  be  a  ground  of  rejection  by  God. 
The  guilt  or  innocence  of  a  soul  can  never  be  a  matter 


90  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  heterodoxy  or  orthodoxy,  but  only  of  the  person's 
attitude  toward  his  ideals  of  righteousness."^" 

This  utterance  is  in  exact  accord  with  the  state- 
ments made  by  John  Wesley:  "Whatsoever  the  gen- 
erality of  people  may  think,  it  is  certain  that  opinion 
is  not  religion:  no,  not  right  opinion;  assent  to  one,  or 
to  ten  thousand  truths.  There  is  a  wide  difference 
between  them:  even  right  opinion  is  as  distant  from 
religion  as  the  east  is  from  the  west.  Persons  may  be 
quite  right  in  their  opinions,  and  yet  have  no  religion 
at  all;  and  on  the  other  hand,  persons  may  be  truly 
religious,  who  hold  many  wrong  opinions. "^^  He  illus- 
trates with  Romanists  and  Calvinists  who  seemed  to 
him  to  be  in  error  in  their  doctrine  but  at  the  same 
time  were  "real  inward  Christians,"  and  then  he  con- 
cludes, "We  cannot  but  infer,  that  there  are  ten  thou- 
sand mistakes,  which  may  consist  with  real  religion; 
with  regard  to  which  every  candid,  considerate  man 
will  think  and  let  think."^^ 

That  is  the  foundation  upon  which  a  universal 
church  can  be  built,  the  charitable  belief  that  vast 
multitudes  will  be  saved  who  differ  with  us  in  their 
faith  because  they  are  just  as  religious  as  we  are,  or 
even  more  religious  than  we  are,  even  though  they 
are  not  half  as  orthodox.  Religion  depends  upon  noth- 
ing but  the  attitude  of  the  heart  toward  God  and 
man.  It  is  as  the  Master  said,  "Not  every  one  that 
saith  unto  me.  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  heaven;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  my 
Father  who  is  in  heaven."^^     All  who  honestly  and 

*«  Bowne,  The  Essence  of  Religion,  p.  167. 
"  Wesley,  Works,  vol.  ii,  p.  20. 
«  Ihid.,  p.  20. 
«  Matt.  7.  21. 


A  TRULY  CATHOLIC  SPIRIT  91 

consistently  desire  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father  ought 
to  be  recognized  as  members  of  the  kingdom,  no  mat- 
ter what  their  name  or  creed.  They  must  be  per- 
mitted to  think  for  themselves  and  they  must  not  be 
condemned  for  their  conclusions,  however  erroneous 
we  may  believe  those  conclusions  to  be.  It  is  as  Paul 
said,  "Who  art  thou  that  judgest  the  servant  of 
another  .5^  to  his  own  lord  he  standeth  or  falleth.  Yea, 
he  shall  be  made  to  stand;  for  the  Lord  hath  power 
to  make  him  stand.  One  man  esteemeth  one  day 
above  another:  another  esteemeth  every  day  alike. 
Let  each  man  be  fully  assured  in  his  own  mind."^^ 
Let  every  man  think  for  himself  and  let  think,  and 
maintain  the  unity  of  the  spirit  in  the  face  of  any 
minor  or  major  differences  of  dogma. 

It  was  upon  this  principle  that  John  Wesley  in- 
sisted through  all  his  life.  It  is  upon  this  basis  that 
practical  cooperation  among  all  Christians  becomes 
possible.  It  is  upon  this  basis  alone  that  unbroken 
fraternal  union  may  be  maintained  among  all  the 
Christian  churches  as  long  as  their  separate  existence 
may  last.  It  is  along  this  line  alone  that  anyone  can 
hope  for  organic  union  in  the  end.  A  truly  catholic 
spirit  like  that  so  well  illustrated  in  John  Wesley  must 
be  cherished  in  the  world-wide  church  before  we  can 
realize  that  ideal  set  forth  by  James  Martineau,  an 
ideal  to  which  all  sincere  disciples  of  the  Christ  will 
look  forward  with  great  longing  until  it  is  attained, 
the  ideal  of  the  final  union  of  Christendom  in  a  "unity 
more  deep-seated  and  affectionate  than  that  of  mere 
opinion;  a  unity  of  allegiance  to  one  Father,  and  toil 
for  one  Brotherhood,   and  reverence  for  one  law  of 

«  Rom.  14.  4,  5. 


92  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Duty,  and  aspiration  for  one  home  in  Heaven;  the 
universal  church  of  good  and  faithful  souls,  adorning 
God's  providence  with  varieties  of  thought,  and 
strengthening  it  by  consentaneousness  of  love."^^ 

*5  Life  and  Letters  of  James  Martineau,  vol.  i,  p.  107. 


V 

RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM 

Albert  C.  Knudson 

The  term  "a  priori"  has  had  a  long  history  and  has 
been  used  in  a  variety  of  senses.^  Down  to  the  time 
of  Kant  it  was  used  mainly  to  denote  that  type  of 
reasoning  which  proceeds  from  cause  to  effect,  stand- 
ing thus  opposed  to  the  a-posteriori  method,  which 
argues  from  effect  to  cause.  Of  these  two  methods 
the  former  manifestly  yields  the  higher  degree  of  cer- 
tainty so  long  as  the  field  of  formal  logic  is  strictly 
adhered  to.  If  a  thing  or  idea  is  so  simple  in  its  struc- 
ture that  its  contents  can  be  completely  analyzed  and 
its  logical  consequences  clearly  and  unmistakably  de- 
duced, as  is  the  case  in  mathematics,  it  is  evident 
that  we  have  in  the  conclusions  thus  reached  a  greater 
degree  of  certainty  than  any  that  could  be  logically 
attained  by  the  a-posteriori  method,  where  the  con- 
nection between  effect  and  cause  cannot  be  clearly  or 
fully  perceived.  In  the  latter  case  there  is  always 
necessarily  more  or  less  of  a  margin  of  uncertainty. 
But  "a  priori"  and  "a  posteriori"  were  not  in  the 
pre-Kantian  period  always  used  in  a  strictly  logical 
sense.  There  was  a  tendency  to  identify  "a  priori" 
with  knowledge  founded  on  general  or  abstract  con- 
ceptions and  "a  posteriori"  with  knowledge  based 
directly  on  experience,   and  at  the  same  time  there 

1  See  article  on  "A  Priori,"  by  Paul  Kalweit  in  Encyclopedia  of  Re- 
ligion and  Ethics. 

93 


94  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

was  a  tendency  to  approach  the  problem  of  certainty 
from  the  psychological  rather  than  the  logical  point 
of  view.  Now,  psychologically  it  is  evident  that  the 
concrete  data  of  experience  come  first,  and  carry  with 
them  a  greater  degree  of  certainty  than  do  general 
conceptions.  The  result  was  that  with  some  thinkers, 
such  as  Gassendi,  the  a  priori  ceased  to  be  an  index  of 
certainty  and  became  subordinate  to  a-posteriori 
knowledge. 

The  ambiguity  that  thus  arose  in  the  use  of  the 
term  "a  priori"  prepared  the  way  for  the  ascription 
of  a  new  meaning  to  it.  The  new  meaning  grew  out 
of  the  increasingly  sharp  antithesis  which  the  thinkers 
of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  estab- 
lished between  reason  and  experience.  The  funda- 
mental problem  which  engaged  these  thinkers  was  the 
question  as  to  which  of  the  two,  experience  or  reason, 
was  the  source  and  norm  of  knowledge.  Both  no 
doubt  were  involved  in  the  knowing  process,  but  one 
or  the  other,  it  was  thought,  must  be  primary  and 
normative.  In  this  way  there  arose  a  sharp  distinc- 
tion between  'pure  reason  and  pure  experience,  and  the 
term  "a  priori"  naturally  became  identified  with 
knowledge  derived  from  the  former.  This  usage  ap- 
pears in  Leibnitz,  and  forms  the  starting-point  of 
Kant's  work.  "A  priori"  in  this  sense  denotes  knowl- 
edge that  is  independent  of  experience.  It  does  not 
mean  simply  reasoning  from  cause  to  effect,  nor  does 
it  mean  a  knowledge  based  on  general  conceptions.  It 
means  such  knowledge  as  grows  out  of  the  very  struc- 
ture of  reason  itself;  it  denotes  those  principles  that 
are  immanent  in  the  mind,  in  the  rational  nature  as 
such,  principles  that  are  consequently  necessary  and 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  95 

universal  and  in  this  sense  the  condition  and  norm  of 
knowledge. 

It  is  Kant  especially  to  whom  we  owe  this  meaning 
of  the  term  "a  priori."  Indeed,  the  term  itself  figures 
far  more  prominently  in  his  thought  than  in  that  of 
any  philosopher  before  his  time.  The  problem  indi- 
cated by  it  formed  the  very  center  of  his  system.  His 
entire  philosophy  might  be  said  to  revolve  around  the 
various  questions  relative  to  synthetic  judgments  a 
'priori,  that  is,  judgments  that  do  not  consist  simply 
in  the  analysis  of  concepts  and  that  at  the  same  time 
pass  beyond  the  range  of  experience.  Are  there  such 
judgments,  how  are  they  possible,  and  what  are  they? 
It  was  these  questions  above  all  others  that  Kant  set 
himself  to  answer;  and  the  answers  he  gave  to  them 
constitute  the  substance  of  his  philosophy. 

It  was  Kant's  aim  to  mediate  between  empiricism 
and  apriorism  or  rationalism.  And  this  he  did  in  the 
sense  that  he  acknowledged  elements  of  truth  in  both. 
But  at  heart  his  system  was  a  new  form  of  apriorism. 
Its  very  genius  consisted  in  the  thoroughness  and 
originality  with  which  he  made  good  the  claim  that 
there  are  synthetic  judgments  a  priori.  These  judg- 
ments he  found  both  in  the  theoretical  and  the  prac- 
tical reason.  In  the  theoretical  reason  the  a-priori 
elements  are  the  pure  forms  of  perception,  space  and 
time,  and  the  various  categories.  What  distinguishes 
these  elements  in  our  thought  life  is  the  fact  that  they 
have  the  marks  of  universality  and  strict  necessity. 
It  is  this  that  gives  to  them  their  a-priori  character. 
They  are  not  innate  ideas,  nor  are  they  psychological 
capacities  like  that  of  color-sensation.  They  are 
purely  formal  principles,  immanent  in  the  mind,  prin- 


96  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

ciples  that  are  involved  in  experience  as  a  whole  and 
that  are  essential  to  experience.  In  the  practical 
reason,  on  the  other  hand,  the  a-priori  element,  ac- 
cording to  Kant,  manifests  itself  in  the  categorical 
imperative.  This  imperative  involves  the  uncondi- 
tional obligation  to  do  the  right;  and  the  right  Kant 
interprets  in  terms  of  the  unselfish  will  and  of  the 
sacredness  of  personality.  That  the  latter  ideas  have 
no  foundation  in  mere  experience  is  evident.  They 
are  ideal  creations  of  the  practical  reason,  and  hence 
are  to  be  regarded  as  a  priori. 

To  Kant's  use  of  the  term  "a  priori"  in  the  latter 
connection  objection  has  in  recent  times  been  raised. 
It  has  been  urged  that  there  is  hardly  any  resemblance 
between  his  theoretical  and  his  practical  a  priori. 
The  same  tests,  those  of  universality  and  necessity,  it 
is  said,  are  not  applied  in  the  two  cases;  and  in  the 
practical  realm  there  is  no  such  fusion  or  cooperation 
of  the  a  priori  and  the  empirical  as  in  the  theoretical. 
The  will,  for  instance,  must  be  determined  by  the 
a  priori  alone.  But  while  there  are  manifest  differ- 
ences between  the  two  kinds  of  a  priori,  there  are  also 
significant  points  of  similarity.  Both  are  principles 
immanent  in  the  mind,  not  derived  from  experience, 
and  both  are  purely  formal  in  character;  that  is,  the 
practical  a  priori  is  constitutive  of  moral  action  in  the 
same  way  that  the  theoretical  a-priori  conditions 
experience  in  general.  There  is  thus  an  apparently 
adequate  justification  for  applying  the  same  term  to 
both.  The  question  here  at  issue,  it  may  be  added, 
might  also  be  raised  with  reference  to  Kant's  use  of 
the  word  "reason."  Was  he  justified  in  speaking  of  a 
"practical"  as  well  as  a  "speculative"  reason?     Is  it 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  97 

true,  as  he  says,  that  "practical  and  speculative  rea- 
son are  based  on  the  same  faculty,  so  far  as  both  are 
pure  reason"?-  If  so,  it  is  evident  that  there  must 
also  be  a  practical  as  well  as  a  theoretical  or  specula- 
tive a  priori.  For  reason  implies  a-priori  principles. 
Without  them  there  would  be  no  reason.  "A  priori" 
and  "rational"  are  with  Kant  synonymous  terms. 
"Rational  knowledge,"  he  says,  "and  knowledge  a 
priori  are  one  and  the  same."^ 

From  this  it  follows  that  religion  also,  in  so  far  as  it 
is  based  on  reason,  must  have  its  a  priori.  The  a- 
priori  element  in  religion,  however,  did  not,  according 
to  Kant,  have  the  same  specific  character  as  the  moral 
a  priori.  It  was  rather  derived  from  it.  The  beliefs 
in  God  and  immortality  are,  to  be  sure,  distinctively 
religious  beliefs,  and  they  are  synthetic  judgments 
a  priori;  necessarily  so,  since  they  are  not  given  in 
experience.  But  their  validity  does  not  rest  in  them- 
selves, as  is  the  case  with  the  categorical  imperative. 
They  are,  rather,  inferences  drawn  from  the  moral 
nature,  postulates  of  the  practical  reason.  Without 
God  and  without  immortality  the  moral  will  would 
face  an  impossible  task.  This  is  evident  from  the  fact 
that  the  summum  bonum,  which  by  its  very  nature 
the  moral  will  is  called  upon  to  realize,  contains  two 
essential  elements,  personal  holiness  and  the  harmony 
of  happiness  with  morality,  and  that  neither  of  these 
can  be  attained  by  mortal  man.  Holiness  implies  "a 
perfection  of  which  no  rational  being  of  the  sensible 
world  is  capable  at  any  moment  of  his  existence."^ 

2  Kant's  Theory  of  Ethics,  p.  261.     Translation  by  Abbott. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  138. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  317. 


98  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Its  realization  is  an  endless  task,  and  so  requires  as 
its  condition  an  endless  life.  On  the  other  hand,  an 
endless  life  would  not  affect  the  harmony  of  happiness 
with  morality.  For  that  an  omnipotent  Being  is 
needed,  and  so  the  moral  nature  postulates  the  exist- 
ence of  God.  In  this  indirect  way  Kant  sought  to 
show  that  religion  has  its  roots  in  pure  reason,  and 
consequently  has  an  a-priori  basis. 

Such  in  its  main  outlines  was  Kant's  conception  of 
the  a  priori,  a  conception  that  with  some  variations 
has  since  been  adhered  to  by  the  various  Kantian 
schools.  It  is  out  of  these  schools  that  the  current 
doctrine  of  a  "religious  a  priori"  has  arisen,  and  it  is 
only  in  the  light  of  the  Kantian  tradition  that  it  can 
be  understood.  Kant  himself  did  not  use  the  term 
"religious  a  priori,"  but  the  idea,  as  we  have  just 
seen,  is  manifestly  involved  in  his  system.  With  the 
way,  however,  in  which  he  developed  the  idea  there 
has  been  much  dissatisfaction.  Fault  in  particular 
has  been  found  with  his  subordination  of  the  religious 
to  the  moral  a  priori.  He  did  not  allow  religion  to 
come  fully  to  itself,  to  express  itself  in  its  own  unique 
and  distinctive  character.  He  left  it  secondary  and 
derivative.  Hence  the  effort  has  of  late  been  made 
to  give  to  the  religious  a  priori  a  more  independent 
character  and  to  define  it  more  precisely. 

This  effort  has  in  Germany  attained  almost  the  pro- 
portions of  a  theological  movement.  It  is  closely  asso- 
ciated with  the  socalled  history-of-religion  school,  and 
has  a  twofold  motive,  a  motive  analogous  to  that 
which  underlay  the  Kantian  philosophy.  What  Kant 
primarily  aimed  to  do  was  to  save  reason  and  the 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  99 

cultural  interests  of  mankind  from  the  disintegrating 
influence  of  the  sensationaHstic  and  empiricistic  phil- 
osophy. At  the  same  time  he  wanted  to  enable  reason 
itself  to  come  to  its  own  as  over  against  the  cramping 
influence  of  the  dogmatisms  of  the  past.  To  attain 
this  double  object  he  created  the  critical  philosophy 
with  its  theoretical  and  practical  a  priori.  He  showed 
that  there  are  principles  immanent  in  the  mind,  which 
no  psychology  can  dissolve  away,  and  which  are 
essential  in  order  to  make  not  only  psychology  but 
even  experience  itself  possible.  On  the  other  hand, 
these  principles  do  not  enable  us  to  go  beyond  expe- 
rience, and  hence  there  is  no  theoretical  basis  for  the 
traditional  metaphysical  dogmas.  The  latter  are  at 
the  most  permissible  only  in  so  far  as  they  serve  the 
purposes  of  the  practical  reason.  Reason  with  its 
aprioristic  principles  thus  stands  in  its  own  right  as 
over  against  empiricism  on  the  one  hand  and  dogma- 
tism on  the  other. 

What  Kant  in  this  way  did  for  reason  as  a  whole, 
especially  for  the  sciences  and  morality,  the  modern 
advocate  of  religious  apriorism  seeks  to  do  for  reli- 
gion. Religion  is  to-day  confronted  with  a  double 
danger.  On  the  one  hand,  there  are  the  various  psy- 
chological and  sociological  attempts  to  explain  religion 
as  an  illusion.  Religion,  we  are  told,  is  simply  a  re- 
vival or  survival  of  an  earlier  "prelogical"  type  of 
thought  characteristic  of  primitive  men,  and  hence  is 
destined  to  disappear  before  the  light  of  science.  Or 
it  is,  as  Karl  Marx  declares,  simply  the  outcome  of 
unjust  social  conditions.  "Religion,"  he  says,  "is  the 
striving  of  the  people  for  an  imaginary  happiness;  it 
springs  from  a  state  of  society  that  requires  an  illusion. 


100  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

but  disappears  when  the  recognition  of  true  happi- 
ness and  the  possibihty  of  its  reahzation  penetrates 
the  masses."^  Or  one  may  with  Emile  Durkheim 
regard  reHgion  as  a  necessary  and  permanent  phase 
of  human  society,  while  at  the  same  time  denying 
objective  reahty  to  the  ideal  objects  of  its  faith.  Or 
one  may  with  various  theorists  of  the  past  treat  reli- 
gion as  the  baseless  product  of  fear,  of  dreams  and 
trances,  or  of  the  personifying  tendency  of  the  human 
mind.  In  any  case  religion  in  its  creedal  form  is  an 
illusion,  and  has  no  basis  in  reason. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  over  against  this  powerful 
positivistic  tendency  in  modern  thought  we  have  the 
various  traditional  theologies,  which  fix  upon  some 
point  or  period  of  the  past  and  erect  it  into  an  abso- 
lute standard  of  faith.  In  so  doing  they  often  tie 
religion  up  to  the  obsolete  ideas  and  customs  of  the 
past,  and  so  stand  in  the  way  of  the  development  of 
true  religion.  Furthermore,  in  virtually  all  cases  they 
make  the  truth  of  religion  dependent  upon  the  his- 
toricity of  some  ancient  tradition.  This  exposes  reli- 
gious faith  to  the  destructive  fire  of  historical  criticism, 
and  leaves  the  intelligent  believer  in  more  or  less  of 
perplexity  and  uncertainty. 

To  meet  this  double  peril,  one  coming  from  theologi- 
cal dogmatism  and  the  other  from  naturalistic  posi- 
tivism, it  is  urged  by  the  religious  apriorist  that  what 
is  needed  is  a  theology,  which  will  make  it  clear  that 
religion  is  something  wrought  into  the  very  texture  of 
human  reason,  that  it  is  not  a  merely  primitive  or 
transitory  or  illusory  phase  of  the  social  life  of  man, 
but  that  it  is  woven  into  the  very  warp  and  woof  of 

^  Quoted  in  Woman  and  Socialism  by  August  Bebel,  pp.  437-438. 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  101 

the  human  mind  as  a  unique  and  constituent  factor 
thereof,  so  that  it  stands  in  its  own  right  and  is  rela- 
tively independent  of  the  support  either  of  science  or 
history.  And  such  a  theology,  it  is  claimed,  is  con- 
tained or  involved  in  the  doctrine  of  a  religious  a 
priori.  This  doctrine  thus  carries  with  it  a  twofold 
polemic.  One  is  directed  against  the  relativism  of 
psychologism  and  historicism,  and  the  other  against 
the  authoritarianism  of  biblicism  in  all  its  forms,  even 
the  attenuated  form  represented  by  the  Ritschlian 
school.  That  the  latter  line  of  attack  has  not  been 
without  its  effect  is  conceded  by  the  Ritschlians  them- 
selves. Professor  E.  W.  Mayer,  for  instance,  writing 
in  1912,®  represents  the  theological  youth  of  Germany 
as  carried  away  with  the  new  program.  He  sees  them 
going  forth  in  long  processions  with  poles  and  torches 
in  search  of  the  religious  a  priori,  and  as  he  watches 
them  he  feels  like  a  father  who  beholds  his  sons  for- 
saking the  fruitful  daily  task  and  starting  out  on  a 
vain  quest  after  some  magical  stone  of  wisdom. 

The  acknowledged  leader  of  the  new  movement  is 
Professor  Ernst  Troeltsch,  perhaps  the  most  influen- 
tial theologian  of  the  day.  It  is  he  who  has  given 
currency  to  the  term  "religious  a  priori,"  and  made  it 
the  watchword  of  the  movement.  The  term,  however, 
in  spite  of  what  has  been  said  above,  is  by  no  means 
clear  in  its  meaning  and  implications.  H.  SUskind, 
writing  as  a  representative  of  the  movement,  declares 
that  "the  most  interesting  thing  in  connection  with 
the  whole  discussion  relative  to  the  religious  a  priori 
is  that  up  to  the  present  [1914]  it  has  been  virtually 

*  Zeitschrift  filr  Theologie  und  Kirchc,  pp.  59f.  Article  entitled  "Ueber 
den  gegenwartigen  Stand  der  Religionsphilosophie  und  deren  Bedeut- 
ung  fiir  die  Theologie." 


102  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

totally  devoid  of  results.  The  reason  for  it  is  that  no 
one  knows  what  the  religious  a  priori  really  is  or  is 
meant  to  be."^  This  uncertainty  and  indefiniteness 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  term  has  naturally  given 
rise  to  different  interpretations  of  it.  Within  the 
history-of-religion  school  we  may  distinguish  two,  that 
by  Troeltsch  and  that  represented  by  Rudolph  Otto 
and  Wilhelm  Bousset.  After  considering  these  we  will 
take  up  a  third  view  advocated  by  Paul  Kalweit, 
which  stands  in  closer  relation  to  the  traditional 
theology. 

With  Troeltsch  the  idea  of  a  religious  a  priori  is  of 
central  importance.  Frequent  references  to  it  are  to 
be  found  in  his  essays,  and  in  three  of  them  it  is  ex- 
pounded at  some  length.  Of  these  the  first  was  deliv- 
ered as  a  lecture  at  the  International  Congress  of  Arts 
and  Sciences  held  in  Saint  Louis  in  1904,  and  bears 
the  title  of  "Psychologic  und  Erkenntnistheorie  in  der 
Religionswissenschaft."  The  second  appeared  in  1909 
in  "Religion  und  Geisteskultur,"  and  is  entitled  "Zur 
Frage  des  religiosen  Apriori."  And  the  third  was 
published  in  "Logos"  in  1913  under  the  title  of  "Logos 
und  Mythos  in  Theologie  und  Religionsphilosophie."^ 
What  Troeltsch  says  in  these  essays  and  elsewhere 
concerning  the  religious  a  priori  is  not  as  definite  nor 
does  it  get  us  as  far  as  one  might  like,  but  the  main 
lines  of  his  thought  are  fairly  clear. 

He  begins  with  the  conviction  that  the  first  task  of 
the  philosophy  of  religion  at  present  is  to  establish  the 
fact  that  religion  is  no  accidental  or  contingent  ele- 

'  Theologische  Rundschau  (1914),  p.  54.  Article  with  title  "Zur 
Theologie  Troeltschs." 

*  The  last  two  essays  are  reprinted  in  the  second  volume  of  Troeltsch's 
Gesammelte  Schriften,  pp.  754-768  and  pp.  805-836. 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  103 

ment  in  human  life,  no  mere  product  of  psychological 
and  sociological  forces,  but  that  it  is  rooted  in  human 
nature,  and  not  only  in  human  nature,  but  in  reason 
itself.  Holding  this  conviction  he  naturally  turns  for 
support  to  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  a  rational  a  priori. 
Within  human  reason  there  are  principles,  both  theo- 
retical and  practical,  that  are  independent  of  expe- 
rience, that  carry  their  validity  within  themselves, 
that  are  unique  and  ultimate.  Among  these  religion 
along  with  science,  morality  and  art  has  its  place. 
It  is  a  necessary  and  constituent  element  of  reason. 
That  this  is  so,  says  Troeltsch,  "may  be  proved  from 
the  immanent  feeling  of  necessity  and  obligation  that 
belongs  to  religion,  and  from  its  organic  position  in 
the  economy  of  consciousness,  which  first  receives  its 
unification  and  its  relation  to  an  objective  world- 
reason  through  religion."^  That  is,  the  a-priori  char- 
acter of  religion  is  guaranteed  by  its  inevitableness, 
by  the  feeling  of  obligation  immanent  in  it,  and  by  its 
structural  relation  to  a  rational  world-view.  In  other 
words,  both  religious  experience  and  philosophy  attest 
the  existence  of  a  religious  a  priori,  a  distinctively 
religious  principle  inherent  in  reason  itself. 

But  while  there  is  a  certain  apologetic  advantage  in 
thus  emphasizing  the  rational  character  of  religion, 
there  are  also  perils  in  it.  The  rationalism  of  the 
eighteenth  century  made  that  clear  once  for  all.  To 
these  perils  Troeltsch  is  quite  alive,  and  seeks  to 
guard  himself  against  them.  First,  he  insists  that  his 
is  a  purely  "formal"  rationalism.  The  "speculative" 
and  "regressive"  rationalisms  of  the  past  he  rejects. 
They  ojBFered  themselves,  their  logically  deduced  ideas 

^  Psychologie  und  Erkenntnistheorie,  pp.  43f . 


104  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  God  and  immortality,  as  substitutes  for  the  histori- 
cal religions;  but  as  such  they  were  wholly  inadequate. 
They  lacked  vital  power  and  before  long  died  of 
anemia.  A  purely  rationalistic  religion  is  in  truth  no 
religion.  At  the  best  it  is  a  parasitic  growth,  wholly 
dependent  on  the  historic  faiths  which  it  seeks  to  dis- 
place. The  only  "rationalism"  that  is  consistent  with 
really  vital  religion  is  a  "formal"  rationalism,  a  ration- 
alism that  does  not  detach  the  religious  a  priori  from 
experience  and  history  but  finds  it  realized  only  in 
and  through  them. 

How,  from  this  point  of  view,  to  distinguish  the 
aprioristic  element  in  religion  from  the  purely  empiri- 
cal is  no  easy  matter.  Even  in  the  theoretical  field  it 
is  difficult  enough  to  separate  the  autonomous  and  the 
valid  from  the  given  and  the  factual.  But  the  diffi- 
culty is  still  greater  in  the  cultural  values  of  life.  And 
yet  the  distinction  must  be  made.  The  logical  must 
be  distinguished  from  the  psychological,  the  norma- 
tive from  the  factual.  Otherwise  truth  itself  would 
vanish.  The  difficulty  of  the  task — and  it  is,  says 
Troeltsch,  "the  fundamental  difficulty  of  all  thought 
in  general" — must  not,  therefore,  bar  us  from  under- 
taking it.  No  simple  and  final  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem, however,  is  possible.  All  that  we  can  do  in  the 
practical  field  is  to  acquaint  ourselves  with  the  various 
cultural  developments  of  human  history,  compare 
them,  reflect  on  them,  live  ourselves  into  them,  and 
then  wait  for  the  response  of  our  own  spirit  as  to  what 
is  normative  and  valid,  not  in  the  absolute  sense  of 
the  term  but  in  the  sense  of  approximating  and  point- 
ing forward  to  an  ideal  goal.  In  all  this  there  will 
necessarily  be  more  or  less  of  the  volitional;  but  voli- 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  105 

tion  is  not  arbitrary,  it  is  guided  by  truth,  a  truth 
which  it  does  not  make  but  finds,  a  truth  rooted  in 
reason — a  truth,  however,  which  is  actuaHzed  only  in 
practice,  in  hfe  itself.  To  determine  the  a  priori  in 
religion  is  thus  a  complex  and  a  more  or  less  elusive 
undertaking.  But  it  is  on  this  account,  according  to 
Troeltsch,  none  the  less  important  that  the  existence 
of  such  an  a  priori  should  be  recognized.  And  the 
very  fact  that  the  religious  a  priori,  as  he  conceives  it, 
is  purely  formal,  immanent  in  experience  and  with  no 
content  apart  from  it,  saves,  he  thinks,  his  conception  of 
religion  from  the  charge  of  being  a  barren  rationalism. 

In  meeting,  however,  the  latter  charge  Troeltsch 
does  not  content  himself  with  aflBrming  the  purely 
formal  character  of  the  religious  a  priori.  He  is 
equally  insistent  on  the  view  that  the  religious  a  priori 
is  unique,  distinct  from  the  intellectual,  the  moral,  and 
the  aesthetic.  It  is  not  an  intellectual  principle  nor  an 
appendix  to  morality,  but  something  peculiar,  realized 
only  in  experience  itself.  It  is  not,  therefore,  a  "ra- 
tional" a  priori  in  the  same  sense  as  is  the  theoretical 
a  priori,  or,  if  so,  the  word  "rational"  is  in  both  cases 
used  in  a  sense  different  from  the  ordinary.  There  is, 
consequently,  a  question  whether  the  word  "rational" 
should  be  applied  to  the  religious  a  priori.  On  this 
point  Troeltsch  himself  seems  to  have  undergone  a 
change  of  view.  In  the  first  essay  in  which  he  advo- 
cated the  idea  of  a  religious  a  priori  he  laid  stress  on 
its  "rational"  character.  He  speaks  of  the  "rational 
a  priori  of  religion"  and  of  the  "rational  kernel  of 
religion,"  and  declares  that  "being  religious  belongs  to 
the  a  priori  of  reason."^"     In  the  second  essay,  that 

1"  Psychologie  und  Erkenntnistheorie,  pp.  36,  48,  44. 


106  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

entitled  "Zur  Frage  des  religiosen  Apriori,"  he  retains 
this  usage,  and  confesses  that  he  has  no  such  aversion 
to  the  word  "rational"  as  many  theologians  have;  but 
at  the  same  time  he  brings  out  the  fact  that  he  uses 
the  word  in  a  special  sense.  It  means  for  him  simply 
"autonomous  validity";  that  is,  religion,  science,  mo- 
rality, and  art  each  has  within  itself  the  law  of  its 
own  being  and  needs  no  validation  from  without.  It 
is  this  that  constitutes  the  rationality  of  each.  But 
in  the  essay  called  "Logos  und  Mythos  in  Theologie 
und  Religionsphilosophie"  Troeltsch  seems  to  fear  that 
his  previous  use  of  the  word  "rational"  may  have  been 
misunderstood,  and  so  emphasizes  the  "anti-intellec- 
tualistic"  and  even  irrational  character  of  religion. 
There  is,  he  says,  no  "rational  standard"  by  which 
religion  may  be  judged.  The  only  standard  applicable 
is  a  purely  religious  one,  one  that  rests  upon  a  personal 
act  and  grows  out  of  life  itself,  one  that  is,  therefore, 
nontheoretical,  nonscientific,  yea  anti-intellectualistic. 
So  emphatic,  indeed,  does  Troeltsch  make  this  idea 
that  one  might  almost  as  well  speak  of  his  "irrational- 
ism"  as  of  his  "rationalism." 

The  difference,  however,  between  the  later  and  the 
earlier  exposition  of  his  views  is,  after  all,  one  of 
phraseology  more  than  of  substance.  In  the  last 
named  essay  he  still  speaks  of  a  "unity  of  reason" 
that  embraces  both  the  theoretical  and  the  atheoreti- 
cal  validity  recognized  in  morality,  art,  and  religion. 
He  thus  continues  to  hold  to  a  species  of  "rationalism"; 
he  looks  upon  religion  as  rooted  in  reason.  But  the 
reason  he  here  has  in  mind  is  a  broader  and  deeper 
reason  than  the  theoretical  or  scientific.  It  is  a  rea- 
son that  in  the  religious  realm  has  its  own  law,  a  law 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  107 

that  may  be  said  to  be  "irrational"  in  the  sense  that 
it  is  nontheoretical.  To  speak  of  an  "irrational  rea- 
son" seems,  to  be  sure,  to  be  a  manifest  contradiction, 
but  the  contradiction  disappears  when  one  takes  into 
account  the  ambiguity  of  both  terms.  Reason  has  its 
practical  as  well  as  its  speculative  side,  and  in  the  former 
regard  it  may,  though  somewhat  ineptly,  be  spoken  of 
as  "irrational."     It  is,  however,  reason  in  both  cases. 

In  thus  stressing  the  broader  and  deeper  conception 
of  reason  Troeltsch  seeks  to  weaken,  if  not  to  over- 
come, the  epistemological  dualism  of  the  Ritschlians. 
They  sharply  oppose  religion  to  science,  and  so  to  a 
certain  extent  isolate  religion.  What  Troeltsch  as 
over  against  this  seeks  to  do  is  to  bring  religion  back 
into  the  circle  of  reason  and  to  link  it  up  more  closely 
with  the  other  rational  interests  of  men,  science  in- 
cluded. He  consequently  traces  these  various  inter- 
ests back  to  a  common  "kernel  of  reason."  This 
kernel  of  reason  is  structural  in  human  personality, 
and  hence  is  more  than  a  merely  formal  reason.  In 
this  respect  Troeltsch  goes  beyond  Kant,  introducing 
a  metaphysical  element  into  his  conception  of  reason. 
But  more  significant  than  this  is  the  fact  that  reason 
as  thus  understood  is  represented  as  having  both  its 
a  priori  and  its  a  prioris.  When  Troeltsch  is  interested 
in  emphasizing  the  unity  of  man's  rational  nature,  he 
speaks  of  "the  a  priori  of  reason,"  but  when  he  wishes 
to  bring  out  the  distinctive  character  of  the  great 
practical  interests  of  life  he  declares  that  each  of  these 
has  its  own  a  priori.  The  religious  a  priori,  for  in- 
stance, has  its  own  "completely  anti-intellectualistic 
peculiarity."^^     We  are  thus  left  in  uncertainty  as  to 

^1  Gesammelte  Schriften,  ii,  p.  820. 


108  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

whether  reason  is  one  or  many,  or  if  it  is  both,  how 
the  two  are  related  to  each  other. 

The  tendency  in  Troeltsch's  thought  is  toward  the 
recognition  of  several  different  a  prioris,  but  he  still 
insists  that  there  is  a  common  element  in  them  all, 
and  this  common  element  he  finds  in  the  autonomous 
validity  that  characterizes  each.  They  are  all  "validi- 
ties of  reason."  But  if  these  validities  are  independent 
of  each  other,  in  what  does  their  unity  consist?  Does 
the  general  term  "reason"  furnish  anything  more  than 
a  verbal  unity?  That  Troeltsch  means  to  affirm  an 
actual  bond  of  union  between  the  different  a  prioris 
is,  of  course,  evident.  But  would  it  not  be  better  to 
find  this  bond  of  union  in  personality  itself  rather  than 
in  reason?  The  word  "reason"  suggests  too  easily  the 
"intellectual,"  and  the  ambiguity  of  the  term  leads 
almost  inevitably  to  more  or  less  of  misunderstanding. 
Furthermore,  in  Troeltsch's  case  the  desire  to  satisfy 
both  the  intellectual  and  nonintellectual  elements  in 
reason  leaves  his  thought  in  a  state  of  unstable  equilib- 
rium. The  apologetic  interest  leads  him  to  affirm  the 
rationality  of  religion,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
fear  of  "rationalizing"  religion  leads  him  to  insist  on 
its  anti-intellectualistic  nature,  the  result  being  that 
neither  aim  is  fully  attained. 

The  frequency  and  emphasis  with  which  Troeltsch 
asserts  the  nontheoretical  character  of  the  religious 
a  priori  has  been  accepted  by  his  followers  as  suffi- 
cient evidence  that  there  is  in  his  aprioristic  concep- 
tion of  religion  no  danger  of  a  new  Hegelianism.  But 
it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  this  confidence  is  fully 
warranted,  H.  Siiskind,  for  instance,  accepts  all  that 
Troeltsch    says    about    the    anti-intellectualistic    and 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  109 

anti-rationalistic  character  of  religion,  but  in  his 
effort  to  define  more  precisely  the  religious  a  priori 
falls  liimseK  unwittingly  into  a  species  of  intellectual- 
ism.  The  religious  a  priori  means,  he  says,  that  it 
can  be  demonstrated  "that  it  is  necessary  to  think 
the  thought  of  God,  and  that  therefore  a  necessary 
idea  of  reason  lies  at  the  basis  of  religion;  and  this 
proof,"  he  adds,  "it  must,  of  course,  be  possible  to 
carry  through  with  cogent  reasons,  if  the  thought  of 
the  religious  a  priori  is  to  have  a  meaning." ^^  Thus 
defined  the  religious  a  priori  has  manifestly  a  theoreti- 
cal character.  The  "cogent  reasons"  referred  to  are 
reasons  addressed  to  the  intellect.  The  "proof"  is  a 
logical  proof.  Yet  Siiskind  thinks  he  saves  the  prac- 
tical nature  of  religion  by  saying  that  cogent  reason- 
ing does  not  compel  the  obedience  of  the  will.  "The 
concept  of  the  religious  a  priori  means  not  that  every- 
one must  become  religious,  also  not  merely  that 
everyone  can  become  such,  but  that  he  ought  to  be- 
come such."^^  The  final  decision  rests  with  the  will. 
The  will  "lays  hold  of  the  truth  apprehended  by 
thought."^^  But  this  very  statement  implies  that  the 
rational  factor  in  religion  is  the  primary  one.  The  de- 
cision of  the  will,  the  "ultimate  axiomatic  act,"  as 
Troeltsch  terms  it,  has  no  part  in  the  knowing  process. 
The  truth  itself  is  already  there,  apprehended  by  thought 
and  established  by  cogent  reasons.  All  that  the  will  does 
is  to  ratify  what  logic  has  made  indubitably  clear. 

The  will,  to  be  sure,  may  act  without  convincing 
proof,  but  convincing  proof  will  necessarily  to  some 


12  Theologische  Rundschau  for  191!t,  p.  57. 

13  Ibid.,  p.  57. 
«  Ibid.,  p.  13. 


110  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

extent  influence  the  will.  In  any  case  it  is  the  rational 
that  logically  comes  first.  It  is  there,  according  to 
Siiskind,  in  the  logical  necessity  of  the  idea  of  God, 
that  the  religious  a  priori  is  to  be  found.  And  if  so,  no 
matter  what  may  be  said  about  the  uniqueness  of  reli- 
gious experience,  the  conception  given  us  of  religion  is 
essentially  rationalistic.  That  theory  does  not  carry 
with  it  practice  by  no  means  saves  a  theory  from  the 
charge  of  being  rationalistic.  "A  rational  a  priori  of 
religion,"  as  Traub  says,  "would  necessarily  rationalize 
religion  itself."  ^^  Troeltsch  himself  escapes  this  con- 
clusion by  leaving  the  religious  a  priori  vague  and  un- 
defined. But  the  tendency  is  implicit  in  his  system,  and 
no  amount  of  stress  upon  the  "anti-intellectualistic 
peculiarity"  of  religion  and  upon  the  purely  formal  char- 
acter of  its  a  priori  can  altogether  eliminate  it.  The 
very  word  "apriori"  has  a  rationalistic  suggestion. 

The  tendency  toward  rationalism  or  intellectualism 
is,  however,  considerably  more  pronounced  in  the  con- 
ception of  the  religious  a  priori  which  we  find  with 
Otto  and  Bousset.  Otto  speaks  of  the  "religious 
a  priori"  as  a  "not  very  felicitous  expression"  and  as 
one  "encompassed  with  misunderstandings,"^^  but 
both  he  and  Bousset  still  use  it,  and  the  idea  figures 
prominently  in  their  theology  or  philosophy  of  reli- 
gion. ^^     These  men  also  profess  to  be  Kantians,  but 

^^  Zeitschrift  fur  Theologie  und  Kirche,  1914,  p.  196.  In  article,  "Zur 
Frage  des  religibsen  Apriori." 

18  K antisch- Fries' sche  Religionsphilosophie,  p.  3. 

"  Bousset  says:  "Das  aber  wird,  wie  es  von  Troltsch  bereits  richtig 
erkannt,  das  grundproblem  unser  heutigen  Systematik  bleiben:  die 
Frage  nach  dem  religiosen  Apriori  und  seiner  Aufweisung  im  Gesamt- 
wesen  der  Vernunft"  {Tlieologiscbe  Rundschau,  1909,  p.  471).  Says 
Otto:  "Wir  suchen  ja  heute  wieder  von  alien  Seiten  nach  dem  reli- 
giosen Apriori"  (p.  3). 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  111 

the  Kantianism  which  they  adopt  is  that  system  as 
modified  by  Jacob  Friedrich  Fries  (1773-1843).  In 
harmony  with  this  modified  form  of  the  system  they 
surrender  the  two  conceptions  on  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  Troeltsch  mainly  rehes  in  order  to  meet  the 
charge  of  intellectuahstic  rationahsm.  For  them,  as 
for  Fries,  the  rehgious  a  priori  is  neither  wholly  unique 
nor  purely  formal. 

According  to  Bousset,  the  characteristic  of  the 
Friesian  philosophy  of  religion,  and  its  chief  service 
to  theology,  is  to  be  found  in  "the  assignment  of  the 
religious  ideas  to  the  pure  reason  and  the  abolition  of 
the  Kantian  dualism  between  the  theoretical  and  the 
practical  reason." ^^  There  is,  therefore,  from  this 
point  of  view,  but  one  reason  and  that  the  theoretical. 
The  religious  ideas  are  a  "necessary  constituent  of  the 
one  homogeneous  reason."  There  is  no  distinctive 
religious  a  priori.  It  is  the  same  theoretical  reason 
that  lies  at  the  basis  both  of  religion  and  of  science. ^^ 
The  only  way,  consequently,  to  establish  the  truth  of 
religion  is  to  show  that  its  central  ideas — its  ideas  of 
God,  freedom,  and  immortality — are  implications  of 
pure  reason. 

In  seeking  to  furnish  this  proof  the  neo-Friesians 
begin  by  rejecting  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  the  subjec- 


1*  Theologische  Rundschau,  1909,  pp.  422,  472.  Review  of  Otto's 
"Kantisch-Fries'sche  Religionsphilosophie  und  ihre  Anwendung  auf 
die  Theologie." 

"  In  his  recent  book,  entitled  Das  Heilige,  Otto  distinguishes  be- 
tween the  rational  and  irrational  elements  in  religion.  The  idea  of 
holiness  involves  both,  and  in  each  sense  "the  holy,"  he  says,  is  "a 
pure  a  priori  category."  The  "irrational"  is  a  fundamental,  constit- 
uent and  permanent  element  in  religion.  There  is  thus  an  "irrational" 
as  well  as  a  "rational"  religious  a  priori.  This  is  an  approach  to 
Troeltsch's  position.  What  is  said  of  Otto  in  the  following  pages 
applies  to  his  earlier  rather  than  his  later  views. 


112  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

tivity  or  ideality  of  the  categories.  Thought,  they 
say,  starts  with  full  confidence  in  itself,  faith  in  the 
objective  reality  of  that  which  it  apprehends.  This  is 
a  fundamental  fact  of  consciousness,  one  that  needs 
no  demonstration  and  is  capable  of  none.  The  basal 
assumption  of  the  Kantian  epistemology  is,  therefore, 
mistaken.  We  have  an  immediate  metaphysical 
knowledge,  and  that  in  the  idealistic  rather  than  the 
realistic  sense. 

So  far  as  our  knowledge  of  nature  is  concerned,  the 
Kantian  theory  is  accepted  as  essentially  correct. 
The  only  important  criticism  is  directed  against  the 
assumed  external  source  or  cause  of  sensations.  Sen- 
sations, it  is  argued,  are  as  subjective  as  the  categories 
and  also  as  the  speculative  ideas,  the  ideas  of  God, 
freedom,  and  immortality.  These  ideas  Kant  had 
found  no  basis  for  in  the  pure  reason.  They  were  not 
constitutive  elements  in  experience  and  hence  could 
not  be  deduced.  Whatever  basis  they  had  must, 
therefore,  be  derived  from  the  practical  reason.  But 
this  Fries  and  his  followers  deny.  They  hold  that  the 
speculative  or  transcendent  ideas  have  the  same  basis 
as  perceptions  and  the  categories  of  thought.  All 
three  forms  of  representation  are  equally  immanent 
in  consciousness.  No  proof  that  they  grasp  an  objec- 
tive reality  is  possible  in  the  case  of  any  of  them. 
They  all  derive  whatever  validity  they  possess  from 
reason's  undemonstrable  faith  in  itself. 

There  is,  then,  nothing  in  the  fact  that  the  specula- 
tive or  religious  ideas  have  no  direct  relation  to  expe- 
rience that  need  cast  any  doubt  on  their  truth.  Rather 
do  they  represent  a  higher  type  of  being  and  a  greater 
degree  of  certainty  than  do  the  things  of  sense.     The 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  113 

space-and-time  world  is  a  world  of  incompleteness,  of 
multiplicity  and  manifoldness,  and  for  that  very  rea- 
son fails  to  meet  the  deepest  test  of  reality.  What 
reason  in  its  inmost  nature  requires  of  reality  is  unity 
and  necessity.  But  unity  and  necessity  can  be  realized 
only  in  the  realm  of  spirit,  of  consciousness,  of  the 
Absolute.  It  is,  consequently,  only  there,  in  the 
supersensible  world  of  the  soul,  of  freedom  and  of 
God,  that  ultimate  reality  is  to  be  found.  The  world 
of  sense  experience  represents  a  lower  form  of  exist- 
ence, and  is  to  be  viewed  simply  as  the  manifestation 
of  a  higher  order  of  being.  This  is  a  conclusion  forced 
upon  us  by  reason's  fundamental  demand  for  a  "neces- 
sary synthetic  unity  in  the  nature  of  things,"  and  it  is 
also  a  conclusion  that  involves  the  essential  ideas  of 
religion.  These  ideas,  therefore,  belong  to  the  a  priori 
of  reason,  and  as  such  they  constitute  the  true  reli- 
gious a  priori.  They  form  the  rational  essence  and 
norm  of  religion,  and  their  validity  is  guaranteed  by 
"the  immediate  metaphysical  knowledge"  possessed  by 
the  human  mind. 

Such  in  brief  is  the  Friesian  or  neo-Friesian  concep- 
tion and  deduction  of  the  religious  a  priori.  This 
conception  manifestly  implies  that  the  a  priori  of  reli- 
gion is  not  purely  formal,  as  with  Troeltsch.  It  con- 
sists of  a  body  of  abstract  doctrines;  and  this, 
according  to  Bousset,  gives  to  it  a  distinct  advantage. 
Troeltsch  with  his  formal  a  priori  is  forced  to  find  its 
definite  content  in  history;  and  from  this  point  of 
view  the  universally  valid  aprioristic  element  in  reli- 
gion can  only  gradually  be  disentangled  out  of  the 
multiplicity  of  individual  phenomena.  And  even  then 
we  have  nothing  final,  for  man's  religious  history  is  in 


114  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

constant  process  of  development.  Change  is  con- 
tinually taking  place.  In  history,  consequently,  we 
can  find  no  absolute  norms.  Norms  so  discovered  can 
at  the  best  be  only  relatively  valid,  and  as  such  they 
leave  our  fundamental  problem  unsolved.  "For," 
says  Bousset,  "what  we  here  need  is  an  absolute 
a  priori  and  in  harmony  therewith  fixed  norms  of 
judgment  for  the  individual  religious  phenomenon. "^° 
Hence,  it  is  claimed,  the  religious  a  priori  of  the  neo- 
Friesians  with  its  positive  content  and  its  necessary 
and  absolute  "ideas"  meets  the  needs  of  the  situation 
better  than  a  merely  formal  a  priori. 

Whether  this  claim  is  justified  need  not  here  be 
discussed.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  point  out  how  un- 
substantial is  the  Friesian  epistemology  and  how 
inconclusive  is  the  Friesian  deduction  of  the  specula- 
tive or  religious  ideas.  What  concerns  us  here  is  the 
bearing  of  the  neo-Friesian  conception  of  the  religious 
a  priori  upon  the  nature  of  religion.  Does  this  con- 
ception "rationalize"  religion  and  so  destroy  its  dis- 
tinctive character?  Both  Bousset  and  Otto  are  con- 
fident that  it  does  not.  For  one  thing,  they  lay  stress 
on  the  prominence  given  by  Fries  to  the  emotional 
element  in  religion.  The  speculative  ideas  in  his  sys- 
tem are  not  offered  as  the  basis  of  a  new  religion  of 
reason.  They  are  "wholly  abstract  ideas  which  by 
themselves  alone  can  never  become  vital,  which,  how- 
ever, unconsciously  or  consciously — and  usually  uncon- 
sciously— lie  at  the  basis  of  all  vital  religion  as  aprior- 
istic  elements."-^  In  this  sense  they  may  be  said  to 
be  "formal";  that  is,  they  are  cold  and  lifeless.    Feel- 

20  Theologische  Rundschau,  1909,  p.  432. 

^^  Bousset  in  Theologische  Rundschau,  1909,  p.  439. 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  115 

ing  and  action  are  essential  to  genuine  and  vital  reli- 
gion. But  however  much  this  point  may  be 
emphasized,  it  still  remains  true  that  from  the  Friesian 
standpoint  the  validity  or  truth  of  religion  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  vital  religious  experience  itself  but  in  the 
speculative  ideas  that  underhe  it  and  that  have  their 
root  in  the  theoretical  reason.  Religion  as  such,  then, 
does  not  stand  in  its  own  right  as  something  unique 
and  distinct.  It  derives  its  support  from  speculative 
ideas  that  lie  outside  of  or  underneath  it.  What 
Fries  offers  us  as  the  rational  basis  and  norm  of  reli- 
gion is  an  abstract  metaphysical  system — a  system 
that  is  not  itself  religion.  Real  religion  he  makes 
subordinate  and  derivative. 

This  is  the  case  no  matter  whether  his  "religious 
ideas"  be  regarded  as  logically  deduced  or  simply  as 
constituent  elements  within  human  reason.  Bousset 
thinks  it  important  that  a  distinction  should  be  made 
between  "a  logical  proof,"  a  Beweis,  "of  religion"  and 
a  "setting  forth  or  exhibition,"  an  Avfweis,  "of  the 
necessary  and  fundamental  religious  ideas  and  the 
determination  of  their  place  in  the  total  structure  of 
reason. "^^  The  latter,  he  asserts,  is  the  aim  of  the 
Friesian  system  and  not  the  former;  and  this  he  seems 
to  think  is  an  effective  response  to  the  charge  of  ration- 
alism. But  however  interesting  the  distinction  be- 
tween Beweis  and  Aufweis  may  be,  the  fact  is  that  in 
philosophy  an  Aufweis  is  of  value  only  in  so  far  as  it 
is  a  Beweis.  To  exhibit  certain  religious  ideas  as  con- 
stituent elements  of  reason  has  significance  only  in  so 
far  as  such  exhibition  carries  with  it  a  proof  of  their 
validity.    And  this  is  manifestly  the  aim  of  the  Fries- 

22  Ibid.,  pp.  478ff. 


116  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

ian  philosophy.  Its  conception  of  religion  is,  therefore, 
fundamentally  and  in  principle  rationalistic.  In  spite 
of  all  that  it  says  about  the  emotional  and  practical 
nature  of  religion,  what  it  actually  does  is  to  bring 
out  not  the  truth  of  religion  but  the  truth  in  religion, 
which  is  a  very  different  thing.  The  truth  in  religion 
belongs  not  to  religion  as  such  but  to  the  theoretical 
reason. 

Thus  far  in  our  consideration  of  the  doctrine  of  a 
religious  a  priori  as  held  by  Troeltsch,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  by  Otto  and  Bousset  on  the  other,  we  have 
dealt  chiefly  with  its  bearing  on  the  general  nature  of 
religion;  and  we  have  seen  that  there  is  a  tendency  in 
the  doctrine  toward  rationalism  or  intellectualism.  In 
the  case  of  Troeltsch  this  tendency  is  held  in  check  by 
the  author's  insistence  on  the  purely  formal  and 
wholly  unique  character  of  the  religious  a  priori,  but 
in  the  case  of  Otto  and  Bousset  these  restraints  are 
lacking  and  the  result  is  that  we  have,  in  spite  of  all 
protestations  to  the  contrary,  a  fundamentally  ration- 
alistic conception  of  religion.  A  further  point  to  be 
noted  in  connection  with  the  religious  apriorism  of 
these  scholars  is  its  bearing  on  the  relation  of  religion 
to  history.  Naturally,  the  rationalistic  tendency  just 
spoken  of  will  manifest  itself  here.  There  will  be  a 
depreciation  of  the  importance  of  the  historical.  The 
a  priori  of  reason  rather  than  any  fact  or  facts  of  his- 
tory will  be  made  the  basis  of  religion.  But  there 
will  also  be  a  diflFerence  in  the  degree  of  this  de- 
preciation of  the  historical  as  between  Troeltsch  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  neo-Friesians  on  the  other.  The 
latter  will  be  more  negative  in  their  attitude  toward 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  117 

history  than  the  former.     And  such,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  we  find  to  be  the  case. 

Both  Troeltsch^^  and  Bousset^^  accept  Kant's  dic- 
tum that  "the  historical  serves  only  for  illustration, 
not  for  demonstration";  to  which  also  may  be  added 
Lessing's  famous  saying  that  "the  accidental  truths  of 
history  can  never  become  the  proof  of  necessary 
truths  of  reason."  In  history  we  can  never  find  the 
absolute.  Miracle  is  excluded  by  modern  science. 
There  is,  therefore,  no  point  or  person  or  period  of  the 
past  to  which  absolute  authority  can  be  ascribed. 
The  authoritarianism  of  biblicism  in  even  its  mildest 
form  is  to  be  rejected.  The  ultimate  basis  of  religion  v(^ 
must  be  found  in  the  rational,  not  the  factual.  But  in 
spite  of  agreement  on  this  point  Troeltsch  in  his 
philosophy  of  religion  accords  a  considerably  larger 
place  to  history  than  does  Bousset.  The  latter  sees  in 
history  nothing  more  than  symbols  of  religious  truth. 
That  is  all  Jesus  is.^^  Whether  he  actually  existed  or 
not  is  a  matter  of  comparative  indifference.  In  either 
case  he  is  a  symbol,  and  in  neither  case  is  he  more  than 
a  symbol.  Furthermore,  in  the  case  of  a  symbol  the 
important  thing  is  not  the  symbol  but  the  thing  sym- 
bolized. Psychologically,  it  is  true,  the  symbol  may 
be  of  considerable  value,  may  even  be  essential  to  a 
vital  religion;  but  logically  or  epistemologically  it  has 
no  real  significance.  The  one  source  of  religious  truth 
is  reason,  and  reason  stands  in  its  own  right.  History 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  validity  of  reli- 
gion.     It   matters    not,    therefore,    what    conclusions 

2^  Das  Historische  in  KanVs  Religionsphilosophie,  pp.  131,  134. 
2*  Theologische  Rundschau,  1909,  p.  432. 

2^  See  Die  Bedeutung    der  Person    Jesu  fiir    den  Glauben   (1910),  by 
Bousset. 


118  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

critics  may  arrive  at  with  reference  to  biblical  history. 
The  most  negative  conclusion  would  not  affect  reli- 
gious faith.  For  in  reason  faith  has  a  storm-free  port, 
undisturbed  by  the  winds  of  criticism. 

With  not  a  little  of  this  Troeltsch  would  probably 
agree  in  the  abstract.  But  actually,  he  would  insist, 
the  case  is  different.  History  may  perhaps  furnish  us 
with  only  symbols  of  religious  truth.  But  a  symbol, 
in  order  to  be  an  effective  symbol,  must  be  more  than 
a  symbol.  There  must  be  an  historical  reality  corre- 
sponding to  it.  It  is  not  then,  Troeltsch  says,  a  mat- 
ter of  indifference  whether  Jesus  ever  lived  or  not.  A 
negative  conclusion  on  this  point  would  put  an  end  to 
the  Christian  Church.  Organized  Christianity  could 
not  exist  without  the  belief  in  the  historicity  of  Jesus. 
It  is  the  historical  Jesus,  the  Jesus  alike  of  faith  and  of 
history,  that  is  the  center  of  Christian  worship  and  the 
uniting  bond  in  every  Christian  communion.  Without 
him  the  religious  forces  of  our  Western  civilization  would 
disintegrate.  His  is  the  only  name  given  among  men 
whereby  a  vital  religious  life  can  be  maintained  in  our 
American-European  world.  What  might  happen  if 
our  Western  civilization  were  overthrown  no  one  can 
tell.  The  religious  forces  of  mankind  would  no  doubt 
again  reassert  themselves,  and  might  then  rally  under 
some  new  name.  But  for  us  this  is  impossible.  Jesus 
is  the  very  life  blood  of  our  Western  religion.  His 
"heartbeat  goes  throughout  the  whole  of  Christendom 
just  as  the  vibrating  of  a  ship's  engine  is  felt  in  every 
corner  of  the  great  vessel. "^^  In  our  European  civili- 
zation there  is  no  substitute  for  him.  For  us  it  is 
"either  Christ  or  no  one." 

^^  Troeltsch,  Gesammelle  Schriften,  ii,  p.  847. 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  119 

Vital  religion,  therefore,  according  to  Troeltsch,  is 
necessarily  bound  up  with  history.  The  necessity, 
however,  does  not  lie  in  any  absolute  predicates  of 
Jesus.  It  is  not  an  a  priori  of  reason.  It  is  due  to  a 
socio-psychological  law.  Religion  as  a  social  force 
requires  a  unifying  bond,  a  center  around  which  wor- 
ship and  fellowship  may  develop,  and  this  center  can 
with  us  be  found  only  in  Jesus.  History  makes  this 
indubitably  clear.  The  Christology,  consequently, 
which  Troeltsch  had  discarded  in  the  realm  of  the 
a  priori  he  thus  in  large  measure  restores  in  the  realm 
of  the  a  posteriori.  But  the  question  arises  at  this 
point  as  to  whether  on  Troeltsch's  own  principles  it  is 
necessary  to  make  such  a  sharp  distinction  as  he  at 
times  does  between  the  rational  and  the  socio- 
psychological.  If  the  religious  a  priori  is  purely 
formal,  it  can  manifest  itself  only  in  the  empirical; 
and  if  it  is  unique  and  non-theoretical,  there  would 
seem  to  be  no  reason  why  it  should  not  reveal  itself  in 
a  socio-psychological  law.  Indeed,  Troeltsch  himself 
says  that  "it  is  one  of  the  clearest  results  of  all  reli- 
gious history  and  religious  psychology  that  the  essen- 
tial thing  in  every  religion  is  not  dogma  or  idea,  but 
worship  and  fellowship,  living  communion  with  God, 
and  that  too  a  communion  of  the  entire  social  group. "^^ 
In  accordance  with  this  it  would  seem  evident  that 
we  must  look  for  the  religious  a  priori  in  the  life  of 
spiritual  communion  and  the  law  that  governs  its  de- 
velopment. For  an  a  priori  that  did  not  express  the 
essence  of  religion  would  not  itself  be  "religious." 
The  socio-psychological  law,  therefore,  which  con- 
ditions the  life  of  worship  and  fellowship,  and  which, 

"  Die  Bedeutung  der  geschichtlichkeit  Jesu  fiir  den  Glauben,  p.  25. 


120  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

according  to  Troeltsch,  makes  necessary  the  venera- 
tion of  Jesus  and  his  leadership  in  our  Western  world, 
need  not  be  regarded  as  a  mere  empirical  fact.  It  may 
be  looked  upon  as  an  expression  of  the  religious  reason. 
What  alone  seems  to  prevent  this  in  Troeltsch' s  case  is 
the  possibility  that  our  American-European  civilization 
may  be  overthrown.  But  on  this  point  he  seems  un- 
necessarily dubious.  With  the  world  unified  as  it  now  is 
it  is  hardly  probable  that  our  present  civilization  will  ever 
be  engulfed  as  those  of  the  past  have  been.^^  In  any 
case  what  we  have  here  to  reckon  with  is  simply  an 
abstract  possibility.  So  far  as  we  know,  our  civiliza- 
tion is  so  deeply  rooted  in  reason  as  to  give  promise  of 
permanence;  and  its  permanence,  as  Troeltsch  admits, 
guarantees  the  permanence  of  historic  Christianity. 

In  spite,  however,  of  all  that  Troeltsch  says  about 
the  practical  necessity  of  the  historical  in  religion,  one 
cannot  escape  the  feeling  that  he  has  not  altogether 
extricated  himself  from  the  influence  of  eighteenth- 
century  rationalism.  Take,  for  instance,  his  indorse- 
ment of  the  Kantian  dictum  that  history  "serves  only 
for  illustration,  not  for  demonstration."  It  is  here 
assumed  that  demonstration  is  essential  to  rational 
belief,  and  that  demonstration  and  illustration  form  a 
complete  disjunction.  But  both  these  assumptions  are 
false.  Demonstration,  at  least  in  the  strict  sense  of 
the  term,  is  not  only  not  necessary  to  rational  belief; 
it  is  not  even  possible  in  the  practical  realm.  Belief 
roots  in  life,  and  life  justifies  itself.  It  is  this  that 
Troeltsch   himself   has   in   mind    when    he    speaks   of 

28  See  article  by  Johannes  Wendland  on  "Philosophie  und  Christen- 
tum  bei  Ernst  Troeltsch  im  Zusammenhange  mit  der  Philosophie  und 
Theologie  des  letzten  Jahrhunderts,"  in  Zeitschrift  fiir  Theologie  und 
Kirche  (1914),  p.  164. 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  121 

"autonomous  validity."  The  only  difference  in  his 
case  is  that  he  identifies  autonomous  validity  with 
reason  or  regards  it  as  an  expression  of  reason.  But 
reason  thus  understood  is  manifestly  not  independent 
of  history.  As  over  against  history  it  is  an  effect  as 
well  as  a  cause.  For  history,  at  least  from  the  reli- 
gious point  of  view,  i§  not  passive.  It  does  not  simply 
illustrate  truth  discovered  elsewhere;  it  reveals  it; 
and  this  revelation  is  a  necessary  factor  in  evoking 
the  religious  "life"  or  "reason,"  whichever  we  may 
call  it.  To  represent  demonstration  and  illustration 
as  forming  a  complete  disjunction  is  thus  a  mistake, 
the  result  of  a  rationalistic  bias.  There  is  a  third 
alternative.  History,  we  agree,  does  not  serve  for 
demonstration,  but  it  does  not  serve  only  for  illustra- 
tion; it  serves  also  for  revelation,  as  a  medium  through 
which  religious  truth  is  discovered  and  apprehended.^^ 

But  if  this  view  of  history  be  adopted  and  the 
tendency  toward  rationalism  thus  avoided,  the  ques- 
tion arises  as  to  whether  we  are  still  justified  in  speak- 
ing of  a  religious  a  priori.  Many  think  not;  but  we 
have  at  least  one  noteworthy  exposition  of  religious 
apriorism  representing  this  standpoint.  The  author  is 
Paul  Kalweit,  to  whom  reference  has  already  been 
made.^°  Kalweit  turns  back  to  Schleiermacher  for  his 
definition  of  the  religious  a  priori,  and  finds  it  in  the 
feeling  of  absolute  dependence.  This  feeling  is  not 
simply  a  psychological  or   empirical  state,  analogous 

2»  For  an  elaboration  of  this  idea,  see  Georg  Wobbermin,  Geschichte 
und  Ilistorie  in  der  Religionswissenschaft,  especially  pp.  16-20  and 
47-72. 

^^  "Das  Religiose  Apriori,"  in  Theologische  Siudien  und  Kritiken,  1908, 
pp.  139-156. 


122  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

to  other  feelings.  If  it  were,  there  would  be  nothing 
of  the  "absolute"  about  it.  That  it  is  a  feeling  of 
absolute  dependence  characterizes  it  as  something  alto- 
gether unique.  Indeed,  it  would  be  better,  as  Kalweit 
says,  to  give  up  the  word  "feeling"  and  put  in  its  place 
the  more  general  term  "consciousness."  The  con- 
sciousness of  dependence  is  something  that  grows 
inevitably  out  of  the  conditions  of  our  life.  It  is,  to 
begin  with,  fragmentary,  lawless.  We  are  aware  of 
being  dependent  at  this  point  and  at  that.  But  the 
sense  of  dependence  itself  we  cannot  escape.  The  more 
we  attempt  to  do  so,  the  more  we  find  ourselves  in- 
volved in  its  coils.  The  only  release  from  the  diffi- 
culty lies  in  rising  above  the  empirical  and  recognizing 
an  absolute  dependence.  As  we  do  this  we  enter  into 
the  realm  of  religion.  Indeed,  it  is  this  consciousness 
of  absolute  dependence  that  constitutes  the  essence  of 
religion.  To  have  this  consciousness  is  to  be  religious. 
And  the  characteristic  of  this  consciousness  is  that  it 
both  embraces  and  transcends  all  the  concrete  feelings 
of  dependence,  giving  meaning  and  unity  to  life  as  a 
whole.  It  is,  therefore,  a  superempirical  conscious- 
ness, a  consciousness  which  empirical  reality  could  not 
generate;  and  as  such  it  may  properly  be  regarded  as 
the  true  religious  a  priori. 

As  against  this  view  of  the  religious  a  priori  it  may 
be  objected  that  the  term  "a  priori"  implies  the  idea 
of  human  activity  and  of  immanence  in  human  con- 
sciousness. And  these  ideas,  it  is  urged,  contradict 
the  nature  of  religion.  For  religion  means  recognition 
of  the  transcendent  and  submission  to  it.  The  expres- 
sion "religious  a  priori"  is,  therefore,  a  case  where  the 
noun   devours   the   adjective   and   the   adjective   the 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  123 

noun.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  antithesis  between 
the  two  terms  is  not  necessarily  so  sharp  as  all  this. 
In  the  notion  of  an  a  priori  there  is  involved  the  idea 
of  something  super-individual  and  so  transcendent. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  feeling  of  absolute  dependence 
does  not  necessarily  mean  passive  submission.  It 
may  mean  and  does  mean  active  self-surrender — in 
other  words,  faith.  Faith  is  thus  an  essential  con- 
stituent of  the  religious  ^  priori.  It  is  faith  that 
makes  possible  religious  experience.  It  is  not  religious 
experience  that  gives  rise  to  faith  but  the  reverse. 
Faith  is  the  a  priori,  the  formal  principle,  that  alone 
makes  religious  experience  possible.  If  we  wish  to 
distinguish  between  the  consciousness  of  absolute  de- 
pendence and  faith,  we  may  say,  as  does  Kalweit, 
that  the  former  constitutes  the  religious  a  priori  in 
its  most  general  content,  while  the  latter  expresses  its 
purely  formal  side. 

Such  a  conception  of  the  religious  a  priori  mani- 
festly contains  nothing  that  conflicts  with  the  idea  of 
revelation  as  a  source  of  religious  truth,  and  hence 
nothing  that  implies  the  rationalistic  attitude  toward 
history.  Still  it  does,  as  over  against  a  one-sided  his- 
toricism,  emphasize  the  fact  that  religion  is  primarily 
a  present  relation  to  God  and  not  some  sort  of  relation 
to  the  past.  A  knowledge  of  the  events  of  Christ's  life 
does  not  necessarily  have  any  religious  value.  These 
events  become  religiously  significant  only  in  so  far  as 
they  are  interpreted  by  faith  and  express  the  feeling 
of  absolute  dependence.  All  the  facts  of  Scripture, 
however,  do  not  serve  this  purpose.  A  distinction 
must,  therefore,  be  made  between  the  transient  and 
the  permanent  in  biblical  history,  and  it  is  the  reli- 


124  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

gious  a  priori  that  enables  us  to  make  this  dis- 
tinction. Apriorism  thus  affirms  that  there  is  in 
man  a  native  religious  endowment  that  is  measurably 
independent  of  science,  of  morality,  and  of  art.  Each 
of  these  great  human  interests  has  an  independence 
of  its  own  and  validates  itself.  Religious  certainty, 
consequently,  has  as  good  a  basis  as  scientific 
certainty.  But  however  true  all  this  may  be,  it  still 
remains  a  question  whether  "apriorism"  is  the  proper 
term  to  apply  to  such  a  conception  of  religion. 
And  this  is  a  point  which  only  taste  and  usage  can 
finally  decide. 

In  concluding  this  essay  it  will  be  well  to  sum  up 
the  main  considerations  that  have  been  urged  for  and 
against  the  idea  of  a  religious  a  priori.  Against  the 
idea  there  are  three  main  arguments.  First,  the  term 
"a  priori"  belongs  primarily  to  logic,  and  can  never 
wholly  divest  itself  of  its  logical  or  intellectual  impli- 
cations. The  result  is  that  the  use  of  the  term  tends 
almost  inevitably  to  "rationalize"  religion  and  so  to 
destroy  its  unique  and  distinctive  character.  Sec- 
ondly, "a  priori"  points  to  a  human  capacity  rather 
than  a  human  need,  and  this  too  runs  counter  to  the 
essential  genius  of  religion.  For  in  religion  it  is  not 
capacity  but  need  that  is  the  important  thing.  That 
human  nature  or  human  reason  necessarily  generates 
the  idea  of  God  is  an  interesting  and  significant  philo- 
sophical truth,  but  what  religion  requires  is  not  simply 
a  self-generated  idea  of  God  but  God  himself.  That 
is,  revelation  is  essential  to  religion,  and  this  idea  is 
not  conveyed  by  the  term  "a  priori."  The  latter 
rather  suggests  human  self-sufficiency. 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  125 

In  the  third  place,  the  idea  of  a  reHgious  a  priori 
does  not  sujQBciently  differentiate  rehgion  from  the 
other  cultural  interests.  One  may,  as  does  Troeltsch, 
emphasize  the  unique  and  non-theoretical  character  of 
the  religious  a  priori,  but  in  doing  so  he  coordinates 
religion  with  the  other  a  prioris,  those  of  science, 
morality,  and  art,  and  this  very  coordination  implies 
a  conception  of  religion  that  fails  to  do  justice  to  its 
distinctive  nature.  For,  as  Windelband  has  pointed 
out,  religion  does  not  have  its  own  independent  field 
of  cultural  or  rational  values  alongside  of  science, 
morality,  and  art.  It  is,  rather,  something  superior 
to  them  and  manifesting  itseK  in  them.  The  ideals  of 
the  true,  the  good,  and  the  beautiful  are  also  the 
ideals  of  religion.  What  religion  does  is  simply  to 
unite  these  ideals  in  a  supreme  ideal,  an  infinite  Being, 
to  whom  we  stand  in  personal  relationship.  And  it  is 
this  personal  relationship  to  the  divine  that  consti- 
tutes the  unique  element  in  religion.  It  is  this  fact 
that  leads  Dunkmann^°  to  distinguish  between  Geistes- 
geschichte  and  Kulturgeschichte,  and  to  argue  that  the 
religious  a  priori  is  to  be  found  in  the  former,  in  that 
society  of  spirits  human  and  divine,  which  is  the 
creative  source  of  human  spirits,  who  in  turn  are  the 
creators  of  that  cultural  history,  to  which  science, 
morality,  and  art  belong.  But  if  the  religious  a  priori 
is  to  be  assigned  to  so  distinct  a  field,  it  would  seem 
best  to  discard  the  term  altogether,  and  to  think  of 
religion  as  the  source  and  ground  of  the  other  a  prioris 
rather  than  as  itself  an  a  priori  coordinate  with  the 
others. 

As  over  against  these  considerations,  however,  it  is 

.30  Das  religiose  Apriori  und  die  GeschicfUe  (1910). 


126  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

argued  that  we  need  a  term  to  express  the  fact  that 
religion,  in  spite  of  all  its  uniqueness,  is  not  an  isolated 
phenomenon,  but  stands  in  a  structural  relation  to  life 
or  reason  as  a  .whole.  We  need  also  a  term  to  bring 
out  the  idea  that  religion  is  not  something  secondary 
and  derivative,  but  something  fundamental  and  irre- 
ducible, as  much  so  as  the  intellectual,  moral,  and 
aesthetic  interests  of  men.  We  further  need  a  term 
that  will  carry  with  it  the  implication  that  religion 
rests  upon  as  sure  a  basis  as  does  either  science  or 
ethics.  And  these  needs,  it  is  claimed,  are  all  met  by 
the  term  "religious  a  priori."  It  is  the  relativism  of 
empiricism  that  is  to-day,  as  it  was  in  Kant's  time, 
the  chief  philosophical  enemy  of  religion.  The  only 
logical  position,  therefore,  for  the  religious  believer  at 
present  to  take  is  that  of  apriorism. 

But  with  this  limited  meaning  of  the  term  the 
religio-historical  school  would  hardly  be  content. 
Troeltsch  and  the  neo-Friesians,  as  we  have  already 
pointed  out,  see  in  it  not  only  an  antithesis  to  rela- 
tivistic  empiricism  but  also  an  antithesis  to  authori- 
tarian supernaturalism.  And  in  the  latter  as  well  as 
the  former  sense  there  is  a  certain  fitness  in  the  term. 
It  designates  that  which  is  autonomous.  But  when 
we  seek  to  define  it  more  precisely  and  to  make  it  the 
organizing  principle  of  a  theological  system,  as  some 
do,  we  find  ourselves  confronted  either  with  a  dis- 
concerting vagueness  or  with  differences  of  opinion  as 
to  its  precise  meaning  that  seem  to  preclude  its 
fruitful  use.  Still  in  spite  of  this  the  term  has  a 
stimulating  suggestiveness,  and  in  view  of  its  mani- 
fest adaptability  to  express  certain  fundamental  and 
significant  religious  ideas  may  very  well  serve  a  use- 


RELIGIOUS  APRIORISM  127 

ful  purpose   as  the  watchword  of  a  new  theological 
endeavor.^^ 

21  In  addition  to  the  articles  and  books  already  referred  to,  see  George 
Wobbermin,  Die  Religionspsyckologische  Methode  in  Religionswissen- 
schaft  und  Theologie,  pp.  353-358;  Ernst  Troeltsch,  "Wesen  der  Reli- 
gion and  der  Religionswissenschaft"  in  Die  Kultur  der  Gegenwart, 
Tail  I,  Abt.  IV,  pp.  461-489;  Karl  Bornhausen,  "Das  religiose  Apriori 
bei  Ernst  Troeltsch  und  Rudolf  Otto"  in  Zeitschrift  fur  Philosophie 
und  philosophiscke  Kritik,  1910,  pp.  193-206;  and  "Wider  der  Neo- 
friesianisraus  in  der  Theologie"  in  Zeitschrift  fiir  Theologie  und  Kirche, 
1910,  pp.  341-405;  Paul  Spiess,  "Zur  Frage  des  religiosen  Apriori,"  in 
Religion  und  Geisteskultur,  1909,  pp.  207-215;  D.  C.  Macintosh, 
"Troeltsch's  Theory  of  Religious  Knowledge"  in  the  American  Journal 
of  Theology,  1919,  pp.  274-289. 


VI 
BOWNE  AND  THE  SOCIAL  QUESTIONS 

Francis  J.  McConnell 

Students  of  the  Bowne  philosophy  often  ask  what 
the  attitude  of  Dr.  Bowne  would  probably  be  toward 
the  great  social  and  international  questions  of  to-day 
if  he  were  now  among  us.  It  is,  of  course,  impossible 
to  hazard  more  than  a  guess  in  an  attempted  answer 
to  this  question,  but  there  are  certain  principles  of  the 
Bowne  philosophy  which  have  a  direct  bearing  on  the 
problems  which  confront  us  to-day;  and  some  recol- 
lections of  chance  interviews  which  I  may  be  par- 
doned for  mentioning  are  at  least  suggestive. 

At  the  very  start  it  may  be  well  to  remind  ourselves 
that  in  his  ordinary  conversation  on  social  themes  Dr. 
Bowne  was  a  man  of  varying  moods.  I  remember 
calling  upon  him  once  on  a  Sunday  evening  at  his 
home  just  after  he  had  finished  reading  Miss  Tarbell's 
History  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company.  He  was  blazing 
with  rage  against  the  practices  which  had  been  laid 
bare  through  the  investigations  of  the  skilKul  journal- 
ist. A  few  weeks  later  I  saw  him  again  when  he  was 
in  an  equally  strenuous  temper  over  the  Standard  Oil 
Corporation.  This  time,  however,  his  attitude  was 
one  of  defense  of  the  organization  against  the  attacks 
of  a  group  of  ministers  who  were  protesting  against 
the  use  of  tainted  money  for  religious  purposes.  We 
may  see  in  a  moment  that  there  was  not  as  much 
contradiction  between  the  two  moods  as  one  might 

128 


BOWNE  AND  THE  SOCIAL  QUESTIONS     129 

imagine;  but  on  the  surface  the  attitude  at  the  one 
time  was  directly  opposite  to  the  attitude  at  the  other. 
So,  in  relation  to  the  social  crises  through  which  men 
were  passing  in  his  day,  the  attitudes  of  Dr.  Bowne 
were  many  times  in  contradiction  to  one  another  until 
the  underlying  reason  in  each  case  was  discovered. 

Let  us  remind  ourselves  also  that  Dr.  Bowne  did 
not  give  himself  to  a  close  study  of  social  questions 
until  rather  late  in  his  professional  career.  He  came 
upon  the  scene  when  the  Huxley  and  Tyndall  and 
Spencer  type  of  agnosticism  was  on  the  ascendent  in 
the  United  States.  From  the  period  when  he  first 
began  to  write  on  philosophical  themes  in  about  1871 
until  1882,  when  his  Metaphysics  was  published,  the 
evolutionary  philosophy  of  the  materialistic  variety 
was  making  long  strides  in  the  United  States.  The 
polemic  articles  which  Dr.  Bowne  wrote  in  those  days 
were  directed  against  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Spencer, 
Romanes,  and  even  against  John  Fiske,  for  John 
Fiske  was  then  writing  in  Spencerian  fashion  on  what 
he  called  cosmic  theism.  Dr.  Bowne  also  found  leisure 
for  an  occasional  thrust  at  skepticism  of  the  Strauss 
type.  It  was  not  until  the  late  eighties  or  early  nine- 
ties that  Dr.  Bowne  made  opportunity  to  devote 
himself  largely  to  ethical  questions,  including,  of 
course,  social  questions.  He  himself  felt  that  his  chief 
duty  was  in  the  realm  of  strict  metaphysics  and  that 
the  application  of  his  principles  to  social  philosophy 
would  have  to  be  the  task  of  those  who  were  to  follow 
him.  So  that  we  must  remember,  in  thinking  of 
Bowne's  relation  to  the  social  sciences,  that  he  him- 
self did  not  consider  that  his  own  obligations  lay 
primarily  in  this  field.     Moreover,  a  goodly  share  of 


130  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  strength  he  had  left  after  completing  his  meta- 
physical system  he  felt  inclined  to  devote  toward 
clearing  up  some  of  the  difficulties  of  everyday  reli- 
gious experience. 

Keeping  all  this  in  mind,  however,  we  may  not  be 
far  astray  when  we  say  that  Dr.  Bowne  wrote  no 
greater  book  than  his  Principles  of  Ethics.  The  out- 
standing feature  in  his  ethics  was  his  proposal  for 
reconciliation  of  the  intuitional  and  utilitarian  schools. 
While  Bowne  was  still  a  student  in  college  he  wrote 
a  classroom  thesis  to  show  that  the  two  schools,  cor- 
rectly understood,  were  not  really  opposed.  Even  as 
a  youth  he  insisted  that  the  intuitionalist  was  right  in 
maintaining  that  certain  moral  data  were  part  of  the 
native  furnishing  of  the  mind;  but  he  maintained,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  while  the  intuitionalist  was  right 
in  emphasizing  an  innate  categorical  moral  imperative, 
the  utilitarianist  was  right  also  in  teaching  that  the 
only  way  this  imperative  could  take  actual  concrete 
content  was  in  experience  itself.  At  the  center  of  the 
moral  life  Dr.  Bowne  maintained  that  there  must  al- 
ways be  the  absolute  will  to  do  right,  but  conscience 
alone  cannot  tell  what  is  right  in  a  particular  set  of 
circumstances.  This  must  be  determined  by  observa- 
tion and  reflection,  and  sometimes  by  guess.  Even  if 
the  inner  will  and  disposition  may  be  looked  upon  as 
absolute,  the  concrete  duty  must  always  be  conceived 
as  relative.  At  the  center  of  the  Bowne  system,  then, 
must  be  placed  the  will  to  do  right.  Next  in  order, 
but  practically  equal  in  importance,  must  be  the  need 
of  intense  intellectual  eflFort  to  determine  the  conse- 
quences which  ought  to  be  sought  for  in  carrying  out 
the  will  to  do  right;  and,  finally.  Dr.  Bowne  contended 


BOWNE  AND  THE  SOCIAL  QUESTIONS     131 

that  there  must  be  a  growing  human  ideal  which  will 
condition  all  thought  of  moral  duty.  Through  these 
three  points  his  ethical  system  was  drawn,  and,  of 
course,  he  built  upon  all  these  points  in  his  reflection 
upon  the  problems  of  society. 

It  is  the  merest  commonplace  that  one  who  made  so 
much  of  personality  as  did  Dr.  Bowne  could  not  do 
otherwise  than  put  personality  at  the  center  of  his 
ethical  philosophy.  Just  as  Dr.  Bowne  conceived  of 
the  thinking  person  as  furnishing  the  clue  to  the  uni- 
verse, so  he  conceived  of  the  moral  will  as  the  only 
element  which  would  make  personal  life  worth  while. 
He  would  at  times,  indeed,  defend  the  utilitarian  posi- 
tion in  such  terms  as  to  lead  one  to  believe  that  he 
was  losing  sight  of  the  inner  will  to  do  right  altogether; 
but  he  never  left  a  discussion  without  coming  back  to 
his  fundamental  proposition  that  moral  persons  are 
the  only  ends  in  themselves,  and  that  in  all  their  rela- 
tionships to  one  another  moral  persons  owe  one  an- 
other good  will. 

Inasmuch  as  Dr.  Bowne  was  a  teacher  rather  than  a 
preacher,  it  was  but  natural  that  in  his  classroom  work 
he  should  lay  stress  upon  the  importance  of  the  second 
point  in  his  system,  namely,  the  need  of  using  every 
faculty  at  our  command — especially  every  intellectual 
faculty — for  determining  what  is  right  under  given 
circumstances.  He  would  insist  at  the  outset  that 
every  man  of  us  owes  every  other  man  good  will;  but 
suppose  the  man  whom  we  owe  good  will  is  in  an 
imperfect  moral  condition,  or  suppose  he  is  in  any 
condition  which  raises  perplexity.  In  such  case  Dr. 
Bowne  would  protest  vehemently  against  any  attempt 
to  solve  the  problem  by  any  other  method  than  the 


132  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

most  careful  and  earnest  thought.  It  is  from  this 
angle  that  such  contradictions  as  those  in  his  moods 
about  the  Standard  Oil  Company  must  be  understood. 
His  first  feeling  was  one  of  rage  against  the  system 
which  had  left  out  of  the  account  the  harmful  social 
consequences  involved  in  building  up  such  a  monopoly. 
His  second  mood  was  explained  by  his  resentment  at 
the  attempt  to  deal  with  a  tangled  and  difficult  eco- 
nomic situation  by  coining  a  phrase  like  "tainted 
money."  In  this  field  of  the  study  of  social  causes 
and  effects  Dr.  Bowne  had  a  thorough  horror  of  those 
whom  he  called  "sentimentalists" — a  horror  so  intense 
as  to  lead  him  to  question  the  sincerity  of  most  senti- 
mentalists. 

In  the  days  when  the  United  States  was  wrestling 
with  the  problem  of  how  best  to  deal  with  the  Philip- 
pines— in  the  years  1899  and  1900,  to  be  exact — 
Bowne  found  himself  much  out  of  patience  with  the 
"aberrant  moralizers,"  as  he  called  them,  who  kept 
shouting  that  America  must  do  right  toward  the 
Filipinos  without  giving  any  sort  of  hint  as  to  what 
the  right  would  call  for.  He  used  to  declare  that  the 
performances  of  these  moralizers  were  about  as  com- 
mendable as  if  they  should  shout  at  a  doctor  minister- 
ing to  a  sick  patient,  "Cure  the  patient,"  without 
themselves  possessing  any  information  as  to  the  cause 
of  the  patient's  illness,  or  without  any  suggestion  as 
to  what  a  cure  would  be.  Remarks  of  this  sort  threw 
a  certain  type  of  impatient  radical  into  a  frenzy. 
After  some  such  deliverance  by  Bowne  a  heated  mem- 
ber of  a  Philosophical  Club  to  which  Dr.  Bowne  be- 
longed remarked  that  the  Doctor  might  well  have 
been    employed   as   prosecuting   attorney   before   the 


BOWNE  AND  THE  SOCIAL  QUESTIONS     133 

Sanhedrin  which  condemned  Jesus.  This  criticism,  by 
the  way,  seemed  to  amuse  Dr.  Bowne  himself  very 
much.  He  was  never  tired  of  quoting  it.  The  Bowne 
students,  however,  never  misunderstood;  they  knew 
that  Dr.  Bowne  had  a  passion  for  social  righteousness 
which  never  waned,  and  that  he  felt  that  the  passion 
for  righteousness  in  all  men  should  manifest  itself  in 
the  hardest  kind  of  hard  thinking.  He  felt  that  con- 
science should  be  a  driving  force  urging  men  on  to  the 
most  thoroughgoing  intellectual  mastery  of  the  enig- 
mas of  social  life.  For  earnest  thinking — not  noisy 
oratory — of  the  most  revolutionary  kind  Bowne  had 
sympathy.  I  remember  looking  through  a  New  York 
book  store  with  him  upon  one  occasion  to  find  the 
best  books  on  socialism  by  socialists  to  recommend 
to  students.  Of  course  it  would  have  been  impossible 
for  Bowne,  with  his  nature  and  training,  ever  to  have 
been  a  socialist.  He  was  an  individualist  through 
and  through,  but  he  was  always  willing  to  give  heed 
to  such  social  radicalism  as  might  show  itself  intel- 
lectually respectable.  He  once  stood  in  Copley  Square 
gazing  at  the  Boston  Public  Library  and  finally  turned 
away  with  the  remark,  "That  library  comes  out  of  the 
kind  of  socialism  I  believe  in."  Moreover,  he  never 
wearied  of  poking  fun  at  the  professed  intellectual 
superiority  of  many  social  conservatives.  In  the 
famous  free  silver  campaign  in  1896,  a  prominent 
Boston  political  economist  was  supposed  by  Beacon 
Hill  Republicans  to  have  completely  demolished  the 
free  silver  cause  with  what  he  called  his  "hammer 
argument."  "Here  are  two  coins,"  said  this  economist, 
"one  silver,  and  the  other  gold.  Hammer  the  govern- 
mental inscription  off  the  silver  and  it  loses  half  its 


134  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

value.  Hammer  the  governmental  inscription  off  the 
gold  and  it  still  has  nearly  its  full  value."  This  par- 
ticular argument  gave  Bowne  no  end  of  mirth  because 
of  the  obvious  failure  of  the  economist  to  see  that  if 
the  demand  for  gold  as  currency  should  cease  in  large 
part,  as  the  demand  for  silver  had  ceased,  it  too  would 
lose  much  of  its  value.  Another  class  of  arguments 
that  Bowne  delighted  to  ridicule  were  those  advanced 
in  behalf  of  withholding  political  suffrage  from  women. 
Most  of  these  Bowne  characterized  as  among  "the 
drollest  whimseys"  that  had  ever  entered  the  human 
mind.  The  objection  that  women  should  not  be  al- 
lowed to  vote  because  they  were  evidently  intended 
to  be  the  "mothers  of  the  race"  he  declared  could  only 
be  matched  by  the  objection  that  men  should  not  be 
allowed  to  vote  because  they  were  evidently  intended 
to  be  the  fathers  of  the  race. 

Against  the  pretensions  too  of  any  governmental 
autocracies  of  whatever  sort  Bowne  was  very  fierce. 
Political  and  ecclesiastical  machines  he  detested.  The 
ecclesiastical  mechanism  of  his  own  church  in  his  day 
must  have  been  in  very  woeful  plight  if  it  deserved 
the  criticism  that  Bowne  poured  forth.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  his  own  encounters  with  official  eccle- 
siastics had  been  very  unfortunate,  especially  during 
the  days  when  Professor  Mitchell,  of  Boston  Univer- 
sity, was  under  fire  for  his  biblical  views.  I  have  heard 
him  say  more  than  once  that  the  best  thing  that  could 
be  done  for  the  Methodist  Church  would  be  to  abolish 
the  episcopacy  and  the  district  superintendency  out- 
Tight. 

If  any  fault  is  to  be  found  with  Dr.  Bowne's  method 
of  social  theorizing,  it  would  probably  have  to  take 


BOWNE  AND  THE  SOCIAL  QUESTIONS     135 

the  form  of  showing  that  some  of  his  own  logical  de- 
vices occasionally  played  tricks  on  him.  Every  stu- 
dent who  has  ever  worked  under  Dr.  Bowne  is  aware 
of  the  Bowne  emphasis  on  the  fallacy  of  the  universal 
— the  fallacy,  that  is  to  say,  of  considering  class  terms 
as  if  they  represent  actual  realities,  whereas,  of  course, 
the  only  realities  are  the  concrete  individual  existences 
themselves.  In  many  a  field  Bowne  wrought  splendid 
service  by  showing  the  bogs  in  which  we  land  our- 
selves by  taking  class  terms  as  if  they  were  anything 
more  than  mere  tools  to  help  our  thinking;  but  in  dis- 
cussing social  institutions  Bowne  would  occasionally 
lay  himself  open  to  a  charge  of  failure  to  admit  the 
degree  of  reality  which  attaches  to  institutions  as 
such.  In  dealing  with  the  major  social  groups,  like 
the  state  and  church,  or  the  minor  institutions,  like 
the  school  and  the  theater,  for  example,  he  would 
lay  such  stress  on  the  fact  that  individual  human 
beings  are  the  only  realities  concerned  that  he  would 
now  and  again  understress  the  other  fact  that  when 
individuals  meet  together  in  group  contacts,  their 
conduct  is  different  from  that  which  marks  them  as 
unrelated  individuals.  To  be  sure,  it  would  arouse  to 
contempt  the  Bowne  who  founded  an  argument  on 
the  fact  that  even  chemical  elements  act  differently 
when  together  than  when  separate  to  hear  anyone 
speak  as  if  he  were  not  aware  of  so  obvious  a  con- 
sideration; but  it  is  true  that  he  did  not  always  make 
clear  his  own  understanding  of  the  part  played  in 
human  life  by  social  groups  functioning  as  groups 
rather  than  as  mere  assemblies  of  individuals. 

Again,  it  can  probably  be  urged  with  justice  that 
Bowne  had  not  read  widely  or  closely  in  the  field  of 


136  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

social  theory.  He  was  apt  to  flip  social  theories  out 
of  his  fingers  because  of  their  logical  weakness  without 
stopping  to  consider  their  historical  importance.  For 
example,  he  dismissed  the  theory  of  the  divine  right 
of  kings  with  the  curt  remark  that  the  only  truth  in  it 
was  the  general  supremacy  of  society  over  individuals 
— a  supremacy  which  grasping  kings  identified  with 
their  own  sway.  The  historic  fact  that  the  divine 
right  of  kings  was,  in  its  day,  a  potent  weapon  against 
ecclesiastical  ofiScial  pretension  he  would  have  lightly 
dismissed.  Bowne  once  remarked  that  books  had 
done  him  very  little  good.  He  was  hugely  pleased 
when  a  book  reviewer  in  the  New  York  Tribune  re- 
ferred to  him  as  a  man  who  had  thought  more  than 
he  had  read. 

The  third  element  in  the  Bowne  social  philosophy, 
namely,  the  shaping  of  a  conditioning  human  ideal, 
also  called  forth  much  of  his  best  utterance.  "What 
the  law  of  good  will  asks  for,"  he  used  to  say,  "will 
depend  altogether  on  what  we  take  ourselves  to  be. 
The  law  of  good  will  in  a  group  of  convivial  roisterers 
would  call  for  nothing  higher  than  a  fresh  round  of 
drinks."  It  was  at  this  point  that  the  Bowne  doc- 
trine of  an  inherent  dignity  in  man  and  of  a  morally 
responsible  God  came  in  to  reenforce  the  conclusions 
of  his  ethical  thinking.  He  placed  Christianity  at  the 
head  of  the  forces  working  for  an  enlarging  human 
ideal,  and  therefore  among  the  most  powerful  dynamic 
agencies  for  the  development  of  the  true  ethical  spirit. 
All  the  larger  theistic  conceptions  Bowne  employed  to 
make  more  forceful  his  notion  of  what  he  called  the 
essential  dignity  of  humanity.  Readers  of  the  Ethics 
will  recall  the  sentence  which  declares  that  social  con- 


BOWNE  AND  THE  SOCIAL  QUESTIONS    137 

tacts  take  on  new  force  when  we  reflect  upon  the  pas- 
sage, "Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  to  one  of  the  least  of 
these,  ye  did  it  unto  me." 

A  moment  ago  I  spoke  of  his  emphasis  on  the  neces- 
sity of  the  careful  calculation  of  consequences  in  a 
sound  moral  life.  In  estimating  consequences  Bowne 
made  quite  as  much  of  inner  consequences  as  of  outer, 
and  by  inner  consequences  he  meant  the  effect  of 
courses  of  conduct  on  what  he  called  "essential  hu- 
manity" in  ourselves  and  others.  For  every  form  of 
patent  panacea  for  the  redemption  of  society,  Dr. 
Bowne  had  unsparing  scorn,  but  he  welcomed  every 
movement  in  every  quarter  which  laid  increasing 
stress  on  what  he  always  called  the  essential  human 
values. 

About  the  year  1906  Dr.  Bowne  remarked  to  his 
closer  friends  that  his  interest  in  abstract  philosophi- 
cal questions  as  such  was  beginning  to  fade  out  as 
compared  to  his  interest  in  the  larger  social  and  inter- 
national themes.  His  journey  around  the  world,  made 
at  about  this  time,  did  much  to  deepen  his  interest  in 
the  greater  human  needs.  Dr.  Bowne  was  nearly,  if 
not  quite,  sixty  years  of  age  when  he  made  his  journey 
through  the  Orient — a  journey  which  did  not  indeed 
change  fundamentally  the  character  of  his  thinking, 
but  which  made  an  impress  upon  it  truly  indelible.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  in  discussing  the  larger 
international  questions  in  his  Principles  of  Ethics  Dr. 
Bowne  occasionally  spoke  with  a  harsh  accent.  He 
said  once  of  the  non-Christian  nations  that  they  must 
either  be  transformed  or  perish — and  there  was  a 
suggestion  of  unpleasant  grittiness  in  his  tone.  After 
Dr.  Bowne,  however,  had  served  for  a  considerable 


138  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

period  as  trustee  for  the  American  College  for  Girls  in 
Constantinople,  and  after  he  had  himself  visited  the 
Orient,  his  thinking  on  international  questions  took 
on  a  new  charity  and  sympathy.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  one  of  Dr.  Bowne's  favorite  utterances  was 
that  in  dealing  with  men  we  are  dealing  neither  with 
animals  nor  with  angels,  but  with  beings  passing 
upward  from  a  predominantly  animal  stage  to  a  stage 
which  may  be  predominantly  spiritual.  He  used  to 
declare  also  that  this  was  the  true  ground  for  charity 
in  our  dealings  with  men  and  that  only  a  cheap  cyni- 
cism could  unqualifiedly  condemn  men  in  this  half-way 
stage.  The  journey  out  into  the  non-Christian  world 
chastened  the  Bowne  spirit  and  deepened  his  feeling 
of  charity  for  the  so-called  heathen  peoples.  This  was 
very  remarkable  when  we  consider  the  peculiar  sensi- 
tiveness of  his  own  nervous  organization  to  anything 
crude  or  even  unsesthetic.  He  once  stood  on  the  banks 
of  the  Ganges  watching  the  Hindus  in  the  midst  of 
one  of  their  chief  religious  festivals.  The  disgusting 
sights  and  odors  sickened  him  so  dreadfully  that  he 
asked  to  be  taken  home;  and  he  left  the  scene  with  an 
ashen  face,  exclaiming  that  he  could  understand  very 
well  how  it  might  repent  God  that  he  had  ever  made 
man  and  how  God  might  justly  exterminate  the  race 
which  he  had  made.  The  mental  nausea  passed,  how- 
ever, and  following  it  came  abiding  pity  which  was 
probably  the  largest  factor  in  the  Bowne  conscious- 
ness in  the  last  months  of  his  life.  He  felt  that  the 
huge  outlying  races  of  the  world  had  vast  contributions 
to  make  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  content  of  the 
human  ideal.  Almost  the  last  thing  I  heard  him  say 
was  that  if  he  were  to  live  his  life  over,  and  were  to 


BOWNE  AND  THE  SOCIAL  QUESTIONS     139 

teach  philosophy  and  ethics  again,  he  would  sooner 
work  in  China  than  anywhere  else  on  earth. 

Dr.  Bowne  saw  the  so-called  backward  races  of  the 
earth  in  all  their  unpleasant  and  even  revolting  char- 
acteristics. He  described  the  impression  of  sheer  in- 
anity and  futility  made  upon  him  by  hearing  hun- 
dreds of  Mohammedan  youths  at  school  droning  away 
together  in  a  monotonous  sing-song  in  their  study  of 
the  Koran.  He  was  distressed  by  the  apparent 
superficiality  of  many  of  the  Indian  students.  Lec- 
turing once  to  a  group  of  Hindus,  he  became  nettled 
as  one  after  another  would  arise  and  leave  in  the 
midst  of  his  most  profound  discussions;  and  finally 
called  out  to  some  of  those  going  out  of  the  room  that 
"pint  pots  are  soon  filled."  He  saw  much  everywhere 
to  set  his  soul  on  edge,  and  yet  he  came  back  to  Amer- 
ica in  the  main  hopeful  of  the  final  outcome  of  the 
non-Christian  peoples. 

Especially  did  he  rebel  against  any  treatment  of 
the  so-called  heathen  peoples  as  other  than  human 
beings.  He  used  to  say  that  it  was  immoral  and 
abominable  for  a  so-called  civilized  nation  to  deal 
with  the  backward  nations  with  a  purpose  of  exploita- 
tion, or  to  act  on  any  policy  which  left  the  betterment 
of  the  backward  nations  out  of  the  account.  The 
world  interested  him  as  a  vast  human  problem.  He 
would  not  think  of  men  just  in  masses,  but  he  saw 
them  as  hosts  of  individuals,  each  with  the  possibili- 
ties of  distinction  as  a  responsible  human  soul.  He 
hoped  for  great  things  even  from  peoples  whose  ca- 
reers since  Dr.  Bowne's  death  have  dashed  to  earth 
the  dreams  of  their  best  friends.  For  example,  Bowne 
in  the  nineties  was  extremely  bitter  toward  the  Turks. 


140  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

He  used  to  say  that  if  he  had  an  earthquake  harnessed 
into  good  working  condition,  he  could  think  of  no 
better  use  for  it  than  to  rock  around  in  Turkey  and 
shake  it  into  ruins.  At  the  time  of  the  Young  Turk 
Revohition,  however,  his  feehngs  underwent  a  change. 
He  was  in  constant  correspondence  with  friends  in 
Turkey  who  filled  his  mind  with  fine  hopes  for  the 
days  just  ahead.  The  story  goes  that  Dr.  Bowne 
became  so  convinced  of  the  bright  prospects  of  the 
new  movement  in  Turkey  that  he  prevailed  upon  an 
American  philanthropic  board  to  give  outright  $125,- 
000  for  education  in  Turkey.  He  used  to  quote  with 
delight  the  reports  that  would  come  to  him  of  the 
way  in  which  the  Mohammedan  priests  had  adjusted 
themselves  to  the  altered  situation  and  were  declaim- 
ing upon  the  worth  of  education.  "Certainly  our 
people  should  know  geography,"  said  one  Moham- 
medan leader  to  a  friend  of  Bowne's;  "how  can  they 
tell  rightly  how  to  place  their  prayer  mats  unless  they 
do?"  And  Bowne  remarked  slyly  after  the  utterance 
of  the  priest  had  been  reported  to  him,  "It  is  a  perfect 
illustration  of  the  smugness  with  which  religion  can 
adjust  itself  to  a  revolutionary  change."  Dr.  Bowne 
was  spared  the  distress  of  seeing  his  hopes  for  the 
Young  Turk  movement  brought  to  naught. 

There  are  two  incidents  which  recur  to  me  as  illus- 
trating Dr.  Bowne's  feeling  about  men  everywhere. 
Both  occurred  in  India.  The  Bowne  party  once  went 
into  the  Himalaya  region  accompanied  by  a  servant 
from  the  hot  plains.  The  servant  was  but  thinly  clad 
and  suffered  much  from  the  cold  in  the  high  altitudes. 
Upon  inquiry  Dr.  Bowne  learned  that  the  keeper  of 
the  inn,  or  hotel,  who  was  to  lodge  the  party  was  ex- 


BOWNE  AND  THE  SOCIAL  QUESTIONS     141 

pecting  the  Indian  servant  to  crawl  under  a  sort  of 
porch  and  shiver  the  night  through  as  best  he  might. 
The  dismay  of  the  innkeeper  can  be  imagined  when 
he  found  that  the  entire  party  would  move  from  their 
lodgings  unless  the  servant  had  quarters  inside  as 
comfortable  as  the  quarters  of  any  one  of  the  party. 

The  other  incident  was  even  more  significant.  Stay- 
ing one  night  with  a  missionary,  Dr.  Bowne  heard  a 
peculiar  sound  about  nightfall — a  sort  of  mixture  of 
scuffle  and  moan.  He  went  to  the  rear  of  the  house 
to  learn  the  cause  and  found  the  missionary  beating  a 
servant — an  old  man.  That  missionary  then  and  there 
heard  a  disquisition  on  the  brotherhood  of  man  and 
the  rights  of  human  beings  as  such  probably  much 
more  pointed  than  the  students  ever  heard  in  the 
classroom.  Then  Bowne  gathered  up  his  bags  and 
marched  off  to  a  hotel.  Now,  with  Dr.  Bowne  these 
two  incidents  meant  just  this:  that  he  would  not 
compromise  under  any  circumstances  as  to  the  ideal 
of  the  worth  of  a  human  life  as  such.  That  really  was 
the  heart  of  his  ethical  system. 

The  net  result  in  largest  and  finest  human  terms — 
this  was  the  Bowne  test  for  all  social  institutions  what- 
soever. He  would  judge  social  systems  and  nations 
and  empires  by  their  effect  on  the  human  beings  who 
had  to  live  under  them. 

It  may  be  well  to  add  that  Dr.  Bowne  saw  in  the 
social,  and  especially  in  the  international  realm,  the 
sphere  for  moral  expansion  and  development  of  most 
significance  for  mankind  in  the  decades  just  before 
the  world  at  the  time  of  his  death.  He  always  urged 
that  moral  advance  must  take  the  line  of  bringing 
more  and  more  persons  within  the  range  of  our  good 


142  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

will,  and  more  and  more  of  our  activities  under  the 
sway  of  enlightened  conscience.  He  used  to  say  that 
there  is  a  deal  of  wild  land  as  yet  untouched  in  the 
social  and  international  ethical  sphere  and  that  human 
moralization  cannot  be  complete  until  these  large 
outer  relationships  are  completely  conquered  under 
the  guidance  of  ethical  principle.  It  may  seem  like  a 
trifle,  but  he  would  inveigh  in  his  classrooms  against 
the  sharp-tongued  talkers  who,  under  the  cloak  of 
patriotism,  would  carry  their  sarcasm  and  scorn  into 
treatment  of  international  themes.  Glancing  at  a  car- 
toon once  which  represented  a  foreign  nation  under  a 
grotesque  and  stupid  personification,  Bowne  remarked* 
"All  that  sort  of  thing  is  profoundly  immoral  and  will 
one  day  raise  a  spirit  which  we  cannot  easily  lay." 

If  we  put  Bowne's  social  ethics  into  his  own  terms, 
we  may  say  that  social  progress  can  only  come  by  the 
efforts  of  those  who  have  warm  hearts  and  cool  heads. 
Very  likely  those  who  know  Bowne  only  through  his 
books  think  of  him  as  altogether  of  the  cool-headed 
type.  Those  of  us,  however,  who  were  privileged  to 
stand  closer  to  him  knew  the  warmth  of  a  heart  which 
beat  passionately  for  mankind.  Borden  P.  Bowne 
would  not  be  beguiled  into  believing  in  any  sort  of  fool's 
fire  or  any  sort  of  wild  fire.  He  did  believe,  however, 
that  the  problem  of  the  moralization  of  the  world  is  so 
desperate  that  it  can  never  be  solved  except  as  an  ear- 
nest purpose  shows  itself  in  the  most  careful  and  intense 
scrutiny  of  facts  in  the  search  for  the  principles  which 
will  make  the  life  of  men  worth  living.  The  aim  of  all 
ethical  striving,  both  individual  and  social,  said  Bowne, 
should  be  to  lift  men  up  to  the  highest  reaches  of 
normal  human  life.    All  ethical  theories  must  be  tested 


BOWNE  AND  THE  SOCIAL  QUESTIONS     143 

out  in  life.  It  is  all  very  well,  said  he,  to  avow  that  we 
are  to  let  justice  be  done  though  the  heavens  fall;  but 
we  must  remember  that  if  an  act  brings  down  the 
heavens  it  is  not  likely  to  be  an  act  of  justice.  He 
protested  against  our  being  told  that  virtue  is  its  own 
reward  unless  the  concrete  contents  of  the  virtue 
and  of  the  reward  were  specified.  He  believed  that 
the  testing  place  of  human  character  is  in  the  play 
and  interplay  of  relationships  in  ordinary  human  con- 
tacts. If  out  of  this  interplay  there  comes  increasing  and 
enlarging  richness  of  life,  Bowne  maintained  that  the 
ethics  governing  such  contacts  is  justified.  He  would 
not  hear  of  any  appeal  whatsoever  to  any  other  stan- 
dard for  social  morality  than  the  actual  effects  upon 
actual  human  beings.  When  a  fastidious  New  York 
editor  sniffed  contemptuously  through  two  columns  and 
a  half  against  a  sincere  moral  deliverance  of  a  host  of 
good  ordinary  citizens,  Bowne  declared  of  the  editor 
that  "Pharisaism  had  so  dementalized  him  that  he 
had  become  an  ass  of  the  first  magnitude."  For 
Bowne  believed  in  the  people,  and  demanded  that  all 
social  causes  must  stand  or  fall  by  the  degree  to  which 
they  meet  the  needs  of  the  people.  He  once  said  that 
the  vast  amount  of  drudgery  performed  to  keep  the 
world  going  was  an  immense  item  to  be  set  down  to 
humanity's  credit — and  he  declared  that  all  moral  and 
social  precepts  and  philosophies  must  minister  to  the 
ordinary  mortals  who  day  by  day  bear  the  load  of  the 
world's  drudgery.  He  believed  that  social  solutions 
must  be  wrought  out — rather  than  talked  out.  After 
long  ethical  discussion  of  social  themes  he  would 
return  to  the  words  of  Voltaire's  Candide:  "Mean- 
while, let  us  cultivate  the  garden." 


vn 

A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART 

Herbert  C.  Sanborn 

When  one  attempts  to  identify  and  assemble  the 
data  designed  to  serve  as  the  starting  point  for  devel- 
oping some  general  conception  of  beauty  one  discovers 
at  once  a  disconcerting  situation  that  explains,  while 
it  does  not  ultimately  justify,  the  desperate  claim  of 
the  skeptic.  No  accounting  for  tastes,  de  gustihus  non 
est  disputandum — the  perennial  plaint  that  has  re- 
ceived a  recent  formulation  in  the  positive  assertion 
of  Robert  Eisler:  "Whatever  pleases  or  at  any  time 
has  pleased  anybody  is  beautiful" — would  seem  to  be 
the  appropriate  reaction  to  the  apparent  confusion  of 
palates  and  palettes.  In  spite  of  such  downright  rela- 
tivism, however,  it  seems  significant,  otherwise  than 
to  sophist  and  skeptic,  that  hardly  anything  is  more 
general  than  disputes  on  matters  aesthetic  and  no  field 
perhaps  where  in  practice  skepticism  is  actually  less 
prevalent. 

The  notion  that  everybody  is  an  equally  good  or, 
rather,  equally  bad  authority  in  matters  of  taste,  that 
the  conflicting  verdicts  of  naive  appreciation  and  those 
of  the  connoisseur  stand  on  the  same  plane,  is  surely 
not  borne  out  by  any  survey  of  practice;  moreover, 
the  state  of  aesthetic  purity  and  innocence  assumed  as 
the  possibility  of  strictly  naive  appreciation  is  prac- 
tically nowhere  existent.  The  bald  fact  that  things 
have  pleased  or  displeased  given  individuals  is  cer- 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       145 

tainly  no  guarantee  of  aesthetic  worth,  since  it  is  ob- 
vious that  things  please  and  the  contrary  for  various 
reasons.  Furthermore,  just  as  every  layman  is  to 
some  extent  a  psychologist,  so  everybody  concerned 
is  somewhat  sophisticated  aesthetically.  Everybody 
worth  considering  as  a  source  of  the  alleged  not-to-be- 
disputed  facts  knows  for  one  thing  of  the  existence  of 
standards  of  criticism  and  is  under  the  influence  of 
this  knowledge;  one  important  cause  preventing  the 
novice  from  rendering  a  tolerably  chaste  judgment 
resides  in  the  fact  that  he  knows  or  believes,  without 
having  the  power  to  discriminate  between  them,  that 
both  good  and  bad  works  of  art  exist.  As  compared 
with  the  connoisseur  who  is  able  to  attain  a  state  of 
comparative  aesthetic  abstraction,  such  a  person  is 
embarrassed  by  this  as  well  as  by  the  humiliating  con- 
sciousness that  defects  of  taste  in  some  way  argue 
even  greater  inferiority  than  lack  of  knowledge. 
Neither  in  the  determination  nor  in  the  evaluation  of 
the  facts  is  reliance  placed  in  practice  on  off-hand 
judgment;  nor  is  it  usually  felt  that  the  emphasized 
disagreements  of  experts  and  epochs  are  actually  irre- 
concilable when  due  account  has  been  taken  of  indi- 
vidual and  racial  evolution  and  of  uneliminated 
personal  and  epochal  equations,  which  probably  receive 
too  much  consideration  from  pragmatist  and  skeptic. 

In  the  attempt  to  exclude  irrelevant  factors,  that  is, 
to  indicate  somewhat  precisely  just  what  facts  ought 
indisputably  to  be  included  under  the  general  head, 
we  become  more  than  ever  keenly  aware  that  "aesthet- 
ics" is  a  kind  of  blanket  term,  sometimes  for  different 
classes  of  phenomena,  sometimes  for  different  meth- 
ods of  treatment.     If  we  use  the  word   thus  broadly, 


146  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

as  may  be  done,  to  include  facts  throughout  the  whole 
field  of  sense  experience,  we  are  soon  forced  to  indicate 
by  means  of  qualifications  like  "aesthetically  effective" 
(to  which  the  experience  of  animals  is  perhaps  limited) 
and  "aesthetically  beautiful"  differences  of  importance 
or  value  inside  this  larger  field.  Finally,  we  must 
make  in  the  narrower  field  of  the  beautiful  distinctions 
of  excellence  which  but  corroborate  the  belief  that  the 
most  important  element  in  the  manifest  "complexity 
of  aesthetic  experience"  is  the  implicit  or  explicit  refer- 
ence to  a  norm. 

In  aesthetics  so-called  facts  are,  after  all,  significant 
or  known  facts,  appearing  always  relative  to  prin- 
ciples, and  being  patently,  perhaps  even  more  than 
elsewhere,  the  results  of  selection  and  interpretation 
behind  which  stand  not  merely  deep-rooted  prejudices 
and  idola  of  various  kinds  but  also  more  or  less  con- 
sciously defined  systems  of  metaphysics.  The  issues 
are  ultimately  philosophical  ones;  the  trail  of  the 
serpent  is  over  it  all.  Except  in  the  denial  of  this 
inevitable  circle  there  is,  indeed,  no  truly  naive  ap- 
proach to  any  special  field  of  investigation;  and  this 
and  other  general  considerations  suggest  caution — 
here  and  elsewhere- — in  putting  unlimited  confidence  in 
the  efficacy  of  the  experimental  method  in  the  narrower 
sense  of  the  term,  notwithstanding  striking  averages 
obtained  by  it  and  data  of  heuristic  value  that  have 
been  unearthed. 

In  typical  instances  of  experimentation  in  aesthetics, 
lines  of  various  forms  and  directions,  rectangular  and 
other  figures  of  different  sizes  and  proportions,  colors 
of  different  hues,  shades,  tints,  and  saturation  are  ex- 
hibited to  subjects,  among  them  children  and  savages, 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       147 

in  the  eflFort  to  determine  aesthetic  preference,  emo- 
tional and  motor  reactions,  etc.;  and  in  this  way  the 
majority  vote  is  secured.  In  order,  however,  for  such 
results  to  possess  more  than  doubtful  value  it  hardly 
needs  to  be  said  that  the  jury  impaneled  must  not  be 
naive  but,  on  the  contrary,  sophisticated  aesthetically 
and  sufficiently  schooled  in  introspection  to  be  capable 
of  determining  whether  normally  free  judgment  has 
actually  taken  place,  and  in  such  event  to  be  able  to 
indicate  to  some  extent  what  subjective  factors — indi- 
vidual, racial,  and  epochal  influences — may  have  en- 
tered into  the  reaction.  These  may,  indeed,  be  quite 
other  than  aesthetic. 

Similar  considerations  would  apply  a  fortiori  to  at- 
tempts that  have  been  made  to  gather  naively  from  an 
examination  of  literature  the  conceptions  of  beauty 
prevalent  in  past  epochs  of  history.  In  such  cases  we 
may,  to  be  sure,  discover  what  has  been  called  beau- 
tiful, ugly,  or  indifferent;  that  is,  we  may  gain  ob- 
viously an  identity  of  terminology;  but  knowledge  is 
not  thereby  advanced,  unless  by  some  reference  to  what 
is  otherwise  known  concerning  the  spirit  of  the  race 
and  the  periods  in  question,  and  through  analogy  on 
the  basis  of  our  own  reactions,  we  are  enabled  to  guess 
whether  the  appeal  was  chiefly  physiological,  intellec- 
tual, ethical,  reUgious,  or,  indeed,  aesthetic. 

Subjects  suffering  from  tone-deafness  or  from  achro- 
masia  would  be  plainly  as  handicapped  in  their  judg- 
ment of  music  and  painting  as  a  cretin  in  reasoning. 
A  gourmand,  or  even  a  gourmet,  might  find  estimates 
of  still  life  prejudiced  by  the  arousal  of  nonaesthetic 
elements.  Differences  of  age,  artificial  and  abnormal 
habits  of  life,   accidental  associations,  racial  tenden- 


148  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

cies,  fashions,  social  and  religious  experience,  and,  in 
general,  strong  emotions  and  moods  of  various  kinds 
may  modify  or  destroy  intended  aesthetic  effects.  Sor- 
row in  particular  seems  either  to  prevent  or  to  exag- 
gerate enjoyment  of  given  works  of  art,  while  the 
blindness  of  love  to  positive  ugliness  is  proverbial. 
Bad  or  indifferent  paintings  of  John  Knox  preaching 
to  the  Covenanters  were  once  sure  of  general  approval 
in  England;  the  Niederwalddenkmal,  erected  in  com- 
memoration of  1871,  fails  to  receive  proper  objective 
consideration  on  either  side  of  the  Rhine;  the  presen- 
tation of  his  birthplace  in  a  mere  daub  may  delight  the 
exile,  while  the  mediocre  portrait  of  a  wife  by  a  son 
now  dead  may  call  forth  eccentric  appreciation  in  the 
case  of  husband  and  father.  Through  association  with 
persons  of  distinction  and  beauty  the  most  bizarre  and 
ugly  fads  in  clothing,  etc.,  may  come  to  be  considered 
beautiful,  so  as  even  to  warp  the  collective  judgment 
of  subsequent  epochs.  Thus,  for  example,  a  mere 
fashion  of  wearing  wigs  in  the  sixteenth  century  seems 
to  have  been  largely  responsible  for  the  eccentricities 
of  the  rococo,  the  baroko,  and  for  Hogarth's  em- 
phatic and  one-sided  preference  for  the  famous  ser- 
pentine line.^  Similarly  the  bold  color  effects  of 
cathedral  glass  in  the  fifteenth  century  brought  about 
a  rather  crude  use  of  color  in  contemporary  painting. 
As  a  most  typical  illustration  of  the  way  in  which 
nonsesthetical  factors  may  intervene  to  disturb  seri- 
ously aesthetic  appreciation  we  may  note,  furthermore, 
how  frequently  the  spirit  of  a  narrow  moralism  pre- 
vents works  of  genuine  value  from  producing  their 

*  Compare   Victor  Rydberg,   Det  Skona  och  dess  Lagar  (Goteborg, 
1901),  pp.  28flF. 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       149 

legitimate  effects.  The  conflicting  estimates  of  Byron, 
Coleridge,  Poe,  and  many  others,  Ruskin's  homilies  on 
painting  and  painters,  and  the  effect  of  the  Puritanical 
atmosphere  on  art  in  general  are  too  well  known  to 
need  much  emphasis.  Whole  epochs,  too,  like  that  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  may  hold  the  aesthetic  consciousness 
as  a  mere  ancilla  ecclesicp  in  bondage  from  which  only 
a  long  period  of  time  may  partly  liberate  it;  while, 
under  the  influence  of  positivism  and  naturalism, 
aesthetic  truth  may  come  to  be  regarded  as  nature 
seen  through  a  personality  instead  of  personality  seen 
through  the  medium  of  the  natural.  Moreover,  the 
complex  works  of  art  are  truly  "caviare  for  the 
masses";  the  full  appreciation  of  such  works,  if  it 
comes  at  all,  far  from  being  naive,  is  largely,  except 
perhaps  for  the  especially  talented,  the  outcome  of 
careful  education  in  discrimination. 

Just  as  in  the  field  of  theory  there  are  easy  concep- 
tions and  those  whose  elements  are  united  with  diflS- 
culty,  as  well  as  many  of  both  kinds  whose  wider 
implications  are  by  no  means  self-evident,  so  also  in 
the  field  of  art.  Rhythm  in  music,  for  example,  is 
regularly  apprehended  and  appreciated,  so  that  dance 
music  and  marches  (good  or  bad)  are  popular  with 
the  masses  for  whom  the  harmony  of  such  pieces  or 
of  Beethoven  symphonies  and  Bach  fugues  is  as  non- 
existent as  the  philosophy  of  Kant.  In  poetry  and 
painting,  too,  the  uninitiated  will  seek  mere  mechani- 
cal rhythm  or  a  didactic  content,  taken  in  abstraction 
from  the  form.  These  are,  however,  all  of  them  ab- 
normal and  complex  phenomena  that  find  their  paral- 
lels in  other  fields  than  that  of  art,  and,  while  they 
arouse   distrust   for   merely   impressionistic   criticism. 


150  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

they  should  cause  one  to  despair  of  aesthetics  no  more 
than  mistakes  in  addition  and  subtraction,  fallacious 
reasoning,  or  aberrations  in  conduct  lead  one  to  skep- 
ticism of  mathematical,  logical,  or  ethical  science. 

Because  of  the  unitary  nature  of  culture  in  the  con- 
crete, action  and  reaction  necessarily  take  place  be- 
tween the  other  fields  of  human  experience  and  art  of 
which  the  latter  must  take  due  account  while  main- 
taining abstractly  its  own  freedom.  Works  of  art  as 
such  belong  to  a  world  of  their  own  in  a  sense  inde- 
pendent of  practical  everyday  life,  as  is,  in  fact,  indi- 
cated symbolically  by  isolating  devices  like  the 
pedestal  of  the  statue,  the  frame  of  a  picture,  the 
inclosure  of  the  stage,  the  "es  war  einmal"  of  the 
narrating  grandmother,  etc.  Inasmuch,  nevertheless, 
as  works  of  art  enter  indirectly  as  potent  factors  into 
the  practical  world  itself,  they  are  doubtless  subject 
to  political  sanctions,  as  Plato  means  in  banishing  the 
poets  from  the  Republic.  The  artist  cannot  expect, 
even  conceding  that  there  may  be  pure  works  of  art 
and  that  some  of  them  may  not  be  for  children,  that 
layman  or  critic  shall  be  forced  to  put  off  the  moral 
consciousness  in  order,  as  an  abstract  aesthete,  to 
enter  the  realm  of  art  without  embarrassment.  In 
order,  however,  to  render  a  tolerably  unbiased  ver- 
dict it  is  important  for  the  critic  in  many  instances  to 
be  able  to  approximate  the  state  of  aesthetic  abstrac- 
tion of  the  creative  artist  as  a  limit  or  ideal,  while  it 
may  be  necessary  for  him  at  times  to  leave  this  van- 
tage point  for  that  of  vivid  moral  consciousness  in 
order  to  establish  whether  fundamental  ethical  prin- 
ciples or  merely  some  long-established  but  false  con- 
ventionalism has  been  violated  by  the  artist. 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       151 

In  view  of  the  complexity  and  the  development  of 
aesthetic  experience  the  study  of  the  facts  may  be  pur- 
sued in  several  ways.  We  may  direct  our  attention  to 
the  physiological  concomitants  of  the  psychic  processes 
involved;  we  may  attempt  an  introspective  study  of 
the  aesthetic  consciousness  itself;  we  may  trace  the 
genesis  and  evolution  of  this  consciousness  in  the 
individual  and  in  the  race  by  an  examination  of  its 
products  in  the  field  of  art  history;  and  we  may,  on  the 
basis  of  such  studies,  attempt  the  development  of  a 
theory  of  beauty.  As  is  the  case  with  other  fields  of 
investigation,  these  methods,  though  logically  distin- 
guishable, are  in  actual  practice  more  or  less  inter- 
mingled. The  sciences  mentioned  are,  in  fact, 
merely  points  of  view  for  observing  one  and  the  same 
reality. 

In  pure  physiological  aesthetics  efforts  have  been  made 
to  explain  beauty  and  ugliness  as  adjustment  or  mal- 
adjustment of  the  object  to  given  bodily  conditions, 
more  specifically  to  the  peculiar  modes  of  nervous, 
organic,  and  glandular  activity.  Sometimes  it  has 
been  alleged  that  the  physiological  description  ex- 
hausts the  aesthetic  fact,  which  has  forthwith  been 
identified  outright  with  what  would  otherwise  be 
called  its  physiological  concomitant.  On  such  ex- 
treme theories  the  consciousness  of  beauty  would  be 
reduced  to  minute  or  incipient  organic  movements  and 
secretions  of  certain  glands.  The  work  of  art  might 
then  be  thought  of  as  the  permanent  possibility  of 
certain  organic  conditions  not  yet  definitely  specified 
but  probably  closely  connected  with  manifestations  of 
sex  and  functioning  biologically  in  sexual  selection. 
Such  one-sided  interpretation  rests,  of  course,  on  meta- 


152  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

physical  views  that  are  far  from  being  estabhshed  and 
also  seem  to  be  hardly  in  good  repute. 

The  psychology  of  beauty  starts  with  the  reality  of 
the  aesthetic  experience  as  a  psychic  fact,  attempting 
to  isolate  it  in  introspection  from  other  factors  of  expe- 
rience in  order  to  determine  by  analysis  its  nature  and 
the  conditions  and  laws  of  its  occurrence.  Its  general 
field  of  investigation  is  the  receptive  and  productive 
artistic  activity  among  civilized  adults,  but  it  also 
takes  account,  in  comparative  and  genetic  studies,  of 
the  origin  and  development  of  aesthetic  consciousness 
in  the  individual  and  in  the  race.  In  such  studies  it 
employs  experimental  methods  of  the  old  and  of  the 
new  psychology,  depending,  of  course,  upon  psy- 
chological theorizing  to  supplement  the  facts  of  direct 
observation. 

Beauty  is  for  this  point  of  view  primarily  a  feeling, 
the  quality  or  predicate  of  a  valuing  subject.  It  is  not 
a  quality  of  the  object  like  red  or  green,  sweet  or  sour; 
but  means  that  acts  of  aesthetic  appreciation,  which 
take  place  only  in  consciousness,  are  grounded  in  the 
nature  of  an  object  to  which  they  are  referred  sec- 
ondarily as  predicates  of  aesthetic  judgments.  As 
reactions  they  are  likewise  founded  in  the  nature  of 
the  subject,  so  that  the  complete  study  of  their  con- 
ditions involves  directly  or  indirectly  the  study  of  the 
aesthetic  nature  of  the  subject.  Variations  in  either 
set  of  conditions  result,  of  course,  in  variations  or 
modifications  of  appreciation. 

As  a  result  of  a  preliminary  analysis  of  conscious- 
ness the  distinction  is  established  between  those  feel- 
ings that  arise  in  the  presence  of  objects  which  satisfy 
us  because  of  their  manifest  utility  and  the  thrills  of 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       153 

emotion  that  animate  us  in  reaction  to  objects  that 
evoke  no  such  conscious  reference  but  which  dehght 
us  solely  because  of  their  existence.  This  attitude  of 
disinterestedness  or  aesthetic  detachment,  the  absence 
or  negation  of  theoretical  and  practical  desires,  has 
been  uniformly  stressed  as  a  chief  characteristic  of  the 
aesthetic  consciousness,  since  Aristotle  first  called  at- 
tention to  it.  A  knife  or  other  tool,  but  only  after  its 
purpose  is  known,  may  please  because  of  utilitarian 
considerations;  whereas  the  immediate  delight  in  the 
ornamentation  of  the  handle  not  only  implies  no  such 
extrinsic  reference  of  value,  but  might  conceivably 
exist  when  the  decoration  should  serve  to  diminish 
considerably  the  utility  of  the  implement,  or  even  in 
the  case  of  some  archaic  instrument  whose  utility 
should  not  be  apparent.  We  distinguish  also  between 
shelter  as  the  utilitarian  aspect  of  a  building  and  its 
architectonic  value,  noting  that  in  the  dwelling  house 
beauty  is  regularly  sacrificed  to  utility  and  comfort. 
Some — not  all — useful  things  are  also  beautiful;  and 
not  all  beautiful  things — for  example,  a  ruin  or  a 
destructive  conflagration — are  useful.  Indeed,  beauty 
and  utility  often  vary  in  the  inverse  ratio.  Similarly 
it  is  not  difficult  to  discern  that  the  agreeable  odor  of  a 
rose  and  the  agreeable  warmth  of  a  room  are  experiences 
different  in  kind  from  those  due  to  the  rich  color,  the 
arrangement  and  shape  of  the  petals  in  the  one,  and 
to  the  harmonization  and  general  disposition  of  ob- 
jects in  the  other;  although,  indeed,  in  the  case  of 
many  complex  objects  such  distinctions  are  practically 
more  difficult  than  in  these  simple  examples.  The 
utilitarian  in  the  field  of  aesthetics  attempts  to  explain 
all  such  disinterested  feelings  as  developments  from 


154  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

narrow  individualistic  interests  by  means  of  assimila- 
tion and  complication,  much  as  in  the  field  of  ethics  he 
strives  to  exhibit  altruistic  feelings  as  an  evolution 
from  self-seeking,  thus  far,  however,  in  both  fields 
without  marked  success. 

A  further  distinction  may  be  drawn  between  ele- 
mentary feelings  and  form-feelings,  or  between  those 
feelings  aroused  in  the  presence  of  simple  tones,  colors, 
movements,  and  lines,  and  those  which  occur  in  the 
presence  of  complex  rhythmic  and  harmonious  com- 
binations of  such  elements.  So  far  as  these  elementary 
feelings  are  concerned  it  seems  impossible  to  find  in 
consciousness  directly  the  ground  for  their  peculiarity, 
while  explanation  of  them  as  due  merely  to  past  indi- 
vidual or  racial  associations,  complications  and  the 
like,  would  seem  to  abandon  the  aesthetic  point  of 
view.  These  feelings  may,  however,  be  interpreted 
fairly  in  the  light  of  our  knowledge  of  the  feelings  due 
to  aesthetic  form. 

Form-feelings  arise  in  connection  with  regular,  sym- 
metrical, and  proportionable  arrangements  of  the  ele- 
ments which  call  forth  the  elementary  aesthetic  feelings. 
The  artist's  problem,  like  that  of  the  logician,  consists 
in  the  harmonization  of  discord  and  contradiction,  in 
the  unification  of  a  manifold.  It  is  this  universal  and 
fundamental  aspect  of  art  to  which  Madame  de  Stael 
in  her  declaration  that  architecture  is  "frozen  music" 
and  Walter  Pater  in  the  statement  that  "all  art  aspires 
toward  the  condition  of  music"  both  refer.  In  other 
words,  when  the  object  manifests,  so  spontaneously  and 
obviously  that  attention  is  facilitated,  the  typical  form 
of  consciousness,  then  we  experience  the  peculiar  kind 
of   affective  consciousness  that  is  called  aesthetic  and 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       155 

ascribe  beauty  to  the  object  in  the  form  of  an  aes- 
thetic judgment.  This  law  of  harmony  or  unity  in 
variety,  which  is  one  of  ancient  discovery,  has  been 
regularly  emphasized  by  those  who  have  described  the 
conditions  of  aesthetic  experience. 

Harmony  implies,  however,  not  that  the  elements 
appear  simply  associated  or  conjoined  as  the  result  of 
the  merely  temporal  continuities  of  past  experience 
but  that  they  are  connected  conatively  and  evaluated, 
that  is,  belong  together  organically.  Only  an  organ- 
ism, or  that  which  must  be  apprehended  organically, 
is  able  to  arouse  a  thrill  of  beauty.  The  special  condi- 
tions for  harmony  are  realized  when  differentiation  of 
a  common  principle  is  revealed  in  the  elements  of  an 
object;  for  example,  the  rhythm  or  rime  common  to 
the  parts  of  a  poem;  the  poetical  idea  unfolded  in  the 
successive  stanzas  (sometimes  emphasized  in  the  re- 
frain, as  in  Poe's  *'Raven") ;  the  architectural  principle 
illustrated  and  typified  in  the  parts  of  a  structure; 
gradations  of  light  and  color  and  characteristic  mood 
revealed  in  the  manifold  color- tones  of  a  landscape; 
or  consistency,  that  is,  harmony  of  volition,  mani- 
fested in  the  successive  acts  of  a  character  in  the 
drama  or  in  real  life.  Richard  III  and,  in  real  life. 
Napoleon  (for  both  of  whom  our  approval  is  not 
moral  but  aesthetic)  are  illustrations  for  this  last 
group. 

It  is  possible  to  distinguish  clearly  two  phases  of 
this  law.  In  the  one  case  we  have  the  simpler  differ- 
entiation of  a  common  principle,  which  might  be 
called  monotonous  or  democratic  differentiation,  where 
the  common  bearers  of  the  principle  stand  about  on  a 
par  with  one  another.    The  regular  alternation  of  the 


156  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

pillars,  metopes,  and  triglyphs  in  the  Greek  temple, 
the  spondaic  and  pyrrhie  foot,  and  the  regular  succes- 
sion of  similar  feet  in  a  line  of  verse  are  examples.  We 
may  have,  however,  in  the  sesthetic  object  a  point  of 
orientation  or  emphasis  which  appears  as  the  special 
representative  of  the  common  principle  to  which  the 
other  elements  are  plainly  subordinated.  According 
as  the  subordination  is  more  or  less  absolute,  we  may 
speak  of  a  monarchical  subordination  that  is  tyran- 
nical and  of  one  that  is  free.  Illustrations  of  the 
former  are  towers,  pyramids,  and  structures  like  the 
Egyptian  temple  that  dominate  us  with  a  conscious- 
ness of  sublimity  and  mystery,  together  with  all  cari- 
cature; whereas  instances  of  the  latter  are  the  Gothic 
cathedral,  in  which  the  spire  (often  counterbalanced 
by  one  or  more  turrets)  typifies  the  architectural  prin- 
ciple involved;  cases  of  *'majoring,"  such  as  the  legiti- 
mate exaggeration  of  the  head,  jaws,  and  paws  of  a 
lion,  or  the  neck  and  shoulders  of  a  bull;  groups  in 
painting  with  dominant  and  sub  dominant  figures;  poems 
and  dramas  with  carefully  graduated  climax;  and  char- 
acters like  Balzac's  Catherine  de'  Medici,  whose  every 
act  is  brought  into  unity  through  the  control  of  a  ruling 
purpose. 

Attempts  to  discover  empirically  and  abstractly  the 
exact  relationship  that  should  prevail  between  the 
unifying  and  the  unified  or  subordinated  principle  in 
a  work  of  art,  or  the  search  for  the  most  pleasing  pro- 
portion, have  given  some  very  interesting  results  with- 
out leading  to  anything  absolutely  conclusive.  More- 
over, like  the  memory  experiments  with  nonsense 
syllables,  the  conditions  of  such  abstract  experimenta- 
tion vitiate  to  a  degree  the  actual  concrete  problems 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       157 

involved.  The  relation  in  question  is  doubtless  a 
variable  dependent  on  factors  of  each  concrete  case 
to  a  greater  degree  than  in  other  fields  of  experiment, 
and  is,  in  general,  some  mean  between  a  differentia- 
tion that  means  aesthetic  anarchy,  as  in  the  perfect 
square,  and  a  domination  seen  in  extremely  elongated 
rectangles  and  in  ultra-impressionism,  that  means 
tyranny. 

From  the  knowledge  that  such  well-established  prin- 
ciples as  these  underlie  the  aesthetic  feelings  due  to 
the  form  of  the  elements  found  in  combinations,  it  is 
not  unreasonable  to  infer  that  the  elementary  aesthetic 
feelings  aroused  by  the  purity  and  richness  of  colors 
and  tones  result  similarly  from  peculiarities  of  form 
(different  rhythms  of  vibration,  simplicity  and  com- 
plexity of  sound  and  ether  waves,  and  the  like)  in  the 
objects  to  which  they  are  provisionally  referred.  The 
aesthetic  satisfaction  would  then  be  explained  by  their 
concinnity  with  fundamental  psychic  conditions,  sub- 
ject to  modification  by  manifold  environmental  factors 
that  would  to  some  extent  account  for  epochal,  racial, 
and  individual  idiosyncrasies. 

The  object  that  inspires  aesthetic  feeling  is  content 
as  well  as  form,  and  this  content  too  is  an  expression 
of  the  nature  of  the  contemplating  subject.  ^Esthetic 
delight,  in  general,  is  the  enjoyment  of  our  own  free 
activity  in  the  aesthetic  object,  which  itself  exists,  in 
the  sense  that  everybody  creates  or  recreates  his  own 
work  of  art,  only  in  the  consciousness  of  subjects:  it 
is  an  objectification  of  self.  In  the  case  of  the  ugly 
in  art  or  nature  the  elements  are  likewise  drawn  from 
our  own  psychic  life,  but  the  independent  exaltation 
or  exaggeration  of  subordinate  aspects  in  this  kind  of 


158  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

experience — insubordination — serves  merely  to  depress 
or  disgust  by  diminishing  our  sense  of  free  activity. 

In  the  life  of  the  child  and  of  primitive  man  we  find 
a  thoroughgoing  tendency  to  personify  or  animate  the 
total  environment,  traces  of  which  persist  in  the 
sober  daily  life  of  the  civilized  adult  to  a  greater  extent 
than  is  commonly  noticed.  We  speak  of  the  ocean 
dashing  against  the  shore,  of  the  drawn  bow  tending  to 
unbend;  while  the  scientist,  who  is  supposed  to  talk 
prose  and  not  poetry,  tells  us  of  unities,  energies, 
forces,  activities,  and  also  of  functional  relations  in  ob- 
jective things,  though  reflection  shows  that  these  words 
have  significance,  so  far  as  experience  goes,  only  as 
the  names  for  reactions  in  consciousness  in  the  pres- 
ence of  certain  sounds,  colors,  etc.  We  find,  more- 
over, in  consciousness  experiences  that  possess  a  unique 
intimacy,  although  they  are  referred  to  the  past.  In 
the  contemplation  of  these  we  relive  them  in  the 
active  experience  of  personal  identity  as  inalienable 
"moments"  of  self.  In  a  similar  manner,  for  the  con- 
sciousness of  artist  and  critic,  moods  and  other  psychic 
states  are  embodied  in  works  of  art.  The  work  of  art 
does  not  merely  suggest  life;  it  is  itself  alive,  spirantia 
mollius  aera,  when  attention  is  held,  not  merely  by 
the  details  of  one  of  its  Protean  manifestations  but 
by  the  fundamental  meaning. 

In  the  contemplation  of  even  simple  geometrical 
lines  we  introject  this  feeling  of  our  own  self -activity 
into  the  object  of  consciousness.  The  regular  curving 
line  or  the  line  with  periodical  changes  of  direction  or 
thickness  satisfies  aesthetically,  inasmuch  as  it  permits 
and  induces  psychic  activity  that  is  unified,  contin- 
uous, and  regular.     In  contrast  with  the  checked  and 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       159 

interrupted  activity  called  forth  by  the  annoying  at- 
tempt to  attend  to  broken  lines  or  to  those  that  change 
their  direction  lawlessly,  such  regular,  facilitated, 
"natural"  activity  satisfies,  since  in  it,  without  explicit 
effort,  we  live  through  a  bit  of  the  consistent,  unified 
life  we  strive  constantly,  but  with  comparative  lack  of 
success,  to  reahze  in  other  fields;  it  corresponds  too 
with  the  nonvolitional  rhythm  of  the  emotional  life. 
Too  great  regularity,  however,  here  and  in  the  field  of 
art  in  general  (even  in  design)  is  monotonous,  artificial, 
enslaving,  "faultily  faultless,  icily  regular,  splendidly 
null,"  and  thus  out  of  accord  with  the  free  self. 
"There  is  no  excellent  beauty,"  as  Bacon  said,  "that 
hath  not  some  strangeness  in  the  proportion."  Art 
does  not  exist  for  law,  but,  rather,  law  for  the  sake 
of  art. 

Abstract  figures  seem  beautiful  in  themselves,  when 
not  composed  of  lawless,  broken  lines,  and  when  the 
activity  in  them  is  not  too  mathematically  regular,  as 
it  is,  for  example,  in  the  perfect  square  and  the  perfect 
circle  (both  of  them  rejected  throughout  art  history). 
Lines  in  combination  must  submit  freely,  not  abso- 
lutely, to  the  limitation  of  the  general  plan  or  artistic 
purpose.  The  plans  or  ideas  of  Athena  or  Aphrodite, 
for  examples,  are,  respectively,  a  female  goddess-figure 
presented  by  means  of  severe  dignified  lines  and  one 
presented  by  means  of  sinuous  lines  for  the  purpose 
of  communicating  quite  different  emotional  attitudes. 
Mathematically  straight  lines  are,  however,  excluded 
in  either  case,  and  no  Aphrodite-line  may  enter  the 
Athena-plan  without  violation  by  the  artist  of  his 
freelj^  accepted  limitation.  Other  specific  limitations 
or  laws  would  be  present,  according  to  difference  in 


160  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

posture,  etc.;  but  Athena  stooping  down  or  Athena 
in  motion  would  still  reveal  the  general  law  of  her 
nature;  and  the  beauty  of  the  sculpturesque  idea 
would  in  any  case  be  independent  of  the  mythological 
or  literary  theme  accidentally  involved. 

Our  apprehension  of  colors,  but  particularly  of  musi- 
cal tones,  is  pervaded  with  a  peculiar  intimacy  that 
invests  them  with  psychic  qualities  hardly  less  cer- 
tainly than  is  the  case  with  the  intonations  of  the 
human  voice.  In  my  own  personal  experience  a  pure 
color  in  isolation  is  not  so  satisfying  as  a  rich  color, 
just  as  for  practically  everybody  the  tones  of  the 
tuning-fork  are  not  so  beautiful  as  the  rich  tones  of 
the  violin;  whereas  contrast  combinations  of  pure 
colors,  such  that  one  of  the  contrasting  members  some- 
what dominates,  seem  beautiful.  The  reason  seems  to 
be  that  the  simplicity  or  lack  of  variety  in  absolute 
color  does  not  task  the  self  sufficiently  to  evoke  the 
consciousness  of  free  activity;  it  is  in  short  too  easy. 
The  pure  color  appears  somewhat  insipid  or  lacking 
in  character  and  does  not  evince  its  freedom  until  in 
combination  with  other  colors  it  is  limited  or  has 
opposition  to  overcome,  as  in  the  case  of  the  funda- 
mental or  dominant  tone  of  the  rich  color.  Purple  is 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  colors,  if,  indeed,  not  the 
most  beautiful  one  because  of  this  fact. 

The  beauty  of  light  seems  similar.  Not  the  clear, 
bright  sunlight  of  high  noon,  but  the  uncertain,  mys- 
terious twilights  of  dawn  and  evening  appeal  to  us 
most  aesthetically.  Pure  white  in  pigment  is  not  so 
pleasing  as  a  warm  or  a  cool  white;  the  latter  have 
character,  that  is,  freedom.  A  piece  of  clear  glass  has 
no   freedom   and    individuality   as   compared   with   a 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       161 

diamond,  which  is  ahve  and  active;  it  sparkles  forth 
its  freedom  to  us  and  is  beautiful  when  the  color  in  it 
is  subordinated  to  its  light.  Yellow  and  gold  are  pre- 
ferred colors,  I  believe,  for  the  same  reason.  Pure 
black  (not  the  rich,  luminous,  golden  black,  which 
Tintoretto  called  the  most  beautiful  color)  exhibits, 
on  the  other  hand,  no  freedom;  it  is  dead  and  appro- 
priately the  symbol  of  mourning,  terror,  and  evil. 
Gray  in  most  of  its  shades  is  inactive,  a  balance  of  im- 
pulses, and  hence  properly  described  by  artists  as  a 
neutral.  The  general  effect  of  gray  is  delicacy,  refine- 
ment, and  modesty.  We  can  trace  this  general  quality 
of  beauty,  I  believe,  throughout  the  fine  arts. 

Music  was  called  by  Hegel  the  most  subjective  of 
the  arts,  and  Schopenhauer  regarded  it  as  the  most 
intimate  and  profound  revelation  of  absolute  reality. 
In  point  of  genesis  perhaps  the  most  primitive  of  them 
all  and  in  its  later  development  surely  the  most  per- 
fect, the  spirit  of  music  may  from  one  point  of  view  be 
regarded  as  the  universal  matrix  from  which  the  other 
arts  emerge  as  objectifications.  Unity  in  variety  is 
realized  in  music  in  the  harmonious  system  of  any 
chord;  in  the  domination  of  the  notes  of  a  melody  by 
the  tonic;  in  the  mysterious  identity  of  a  triad  in  its 
various  positions  and  inversions;  in  modulations;  to- 
gether with  the  monarchical  subordination  of  the 
dominant  and  subdominant  to  the  tonic  in  the  moving 
equilibrium  of  the  piece  (continually  attained,  contin- 
ually lost),  which  regularly  ends  with  the  psychic  organi- 
zation of  all  the  elements  in  the  unity  of  the  tonic.  The 
counterpart  of  this  organization  of  the  real  work  of  art 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  artist,  previous  to  external- 
ization,  is  given  us  in  an  oft-quoted  description  of  such 


162  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

an  experience  by  Mozart^ — one  of  the  few  fragments 
of  the  psychology  of  genius  that  we  possess.  Music 
manifests  to  us  depths  of  experience  not  yet  rational- 
ized and  in  this  form  art  is  perhaps  closest  akin  to 
religion.  In  its  organic  growth  and  struggling  lawful 
development  from  point  to  point  a  musical  work 
seems  the  very  image  of  personality. 

In  the  contemplation  of  architecture,  as  Lipps  (de- 
veloping the  thought  of  Lotze  and  Friedrich  Theodor 
Vischer)  well  says,  we  find  ourselves  active  in  the 
sturdy  columns  as  they  thrust  upward  to  meet  the 
load  of  the  superstructure,  which  must  be  heavy 
enough  to  call  forth  the  reaction  of  the  pillar;  other- 
wise the  effect  is  that  of  extravagant  use  of  energy,  as 
in  the  massive  buttresses  of  degenerate  Gothic.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  columns  of  a  structure  are  so 
slender  as  to  seem  inadequate  to  the  task  imposed  on 
them  by  the  plan  of  the  whole  to  which  they  are 
subordinated,  we  have  an  acute  sense  of  aesthetic  dis- 
satisfaction, a  consciousness  of  failure  to  realize  func- 
tion or  purpose,  maladjustment,  a  lack  of  adequate 
freedom.  This  instinctive  personification  or  "inner 
imitation"  of  the  pillar  becomes  at  times  so  vivid  in 
the  consciousness  of  the  artist  that  the  supporting 
columns  are  externalized,  somewhat  extravagantly,  as 
animate  forms,  for  example,  in  the  animal  piers  of  the 
rock  temples  of  India,  the  statue  columns  of  the 
Egyptian  and  the  caryatids  of  the  Greek  temples,  or 
in  supporting  figures  in  such  monuments  as  the  Fon- 
taine Bartholdi  at  Reuns.  Similarly  we  strive  upward 
in  the  "soaring  Gothic"  with  an  exalted  sense  of  com- 
paratively unchecked  effort  in  the  vertical;  while  the 

1  Compare  Royce,  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy,  pp.  456f. 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       163 

Greek  temple,  with  its  balance  of  opposing  forces, 
reveals  the  freedom  of  poise  and  repose.  The  massive, 
unpierced  walls  of  the  Egyptian  temple  awaken  in  us 
the  sense  of  some  dominating  mysterious  presence, 
the  sense  of  divinity  omnipresent  in  Egyptian  culture, 
while  the  Byzantine  dome  or  a  column  like  that  of 
Trajan  seems  the  very  image  of  imposing  grandeur. 
In  contrast  with  dwelling  houses  (which  "being  built 
to  live  in  and  not  to  look  upon"  fail  to  arouse  genuine 
aesthetic  feeling  because  lacking  in  freedom  and  uni- 
versality and  because  of  their  emphasis  on  utility  and 
comfort)  such  public  structures  reveal  or  adumbrate 
to  us  profound  and  significant  aspects  of  personality, 
quite  foreign  to  the  plane  of  ordinary  everyday  ex- 
perience. 

The  natural  material  of  artistic  building  is  stone  and 
the  architectural  problem  consists  in  the  construction  of 
a  shelter,  while  the  artist  realizes  his  freedom  in 
conformity  with  the  laws  of  gravity  and  of  the  given 
material  and  the  selected  site.  It  is  this  last  condition 
or  limitation  of  the  architect  which  accounts  for  cer- 
tain characteristic  differences  in  Greek  and  Gothic 
structures.  The  shelter  itself,  the  utilitarian  phase  of 
his  task,  might  be  provided  for  by  means  of  a  flat 
roof  and  by  solid  walls  with  almost  no  openings;  but 
such  a  building  would  be  in  aesthetic  effect  a  prison, 
lacking  freedom  and  beauty,  though  it  might  possess 
mystery  and  awe.  Beauty  is  manifested  inter  alia 
through  the  construction  of  numerous  apertures  by 
cutting  from  the  solid  walls  all  the  material  that  may 
be  removed  with  safety,  that  is,  without  weakening 
the  structure  unduly.  Freedom  is,  furthermore,  re- 
vealed in  architecture  by  nicety  in  the  determination 


164  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  distance  that  may  be  spanned  in  safety  by  a 
jBat  roof,  as  in  the  Greek  temple  and  in  the  Roman 
basilica.  While,  however,  in  these  cases  the  width  of 
the  building  is  limited  chiefly  by  the  direct  working 
of  the  law  of  gravity,  the  development  of  the  round 
arch  in  the  Romanesque  style  presents  the  possibility 
of  transcending  this  limitation. 

The  more  powerful  thrust  of  the  heavier  Roman- 
esque vault,  however,  demands  greater  thickness  in 
the  supporting  walls,  and  this  in  turn  precludes  the 
possibility  of  a  sufficient  number  of  openings  for  com- 
plete aesthetic  satisfaction.  Attempts  to  circumvent 
this  difficulty  by  means  of  the  pointed  arch  and  the 
device  of  the  flying  buttress  were  never  more  than 
partially  successful,  while  the  disappearance  of  the 
problem  of  the  Gothic  with  the  advent  of  architecture 
in  metal  and  artificial  materials,  brings  special  diffi- 
culties from  the  opposite  direction.  With  natural 
stone  there  was  never  a  possibility  of  getting  too  many 
openings  without  weakening  to  a  dangerous  degree 
the  whole  structure;  the  stone  brought  with  it  the  law 
in  its  own  limitations.  With  the  greater  concentra- 
tion of  strength  in  small  compass  in  the  metal  build- 
ings together  with  the  use  of  girders,  architecture 
becomes  unrestrained  and  lawless.  When  sufficient 
material  has  been  used  to  secure  the  proper  stability 
and  strength  needed  for  the  structure,  there  is  the 
ever-present  danger  of  leaving  too  many  openings  or 
of  filling  up  the  empty  spaces  arbitrarily  and  Ucen- 
tiously;  since  guidance  and  limitation  by  the  law  of 
the  material  itself  is  lacking.  Furthermore,  such 
structures,  though  in  fact  actually  stable  and  strong, 
do  not  give  the  appearance  of  being  so,  and  this  is 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       165 

from  the  point  of  view  of  aesthetics  a  fatal  defect. 
These  are  the  chief  causes  of  ugliness  in  buildings  con- 
structed from  artificial  materials. 

Sculpture  and  painting  are  allied  in  the  beginning 
with  architecture  as  ornamental  adjuncts  to  the  lat- 
ter. Even  in  Greece,  where  sculpture  and  painting 
come  to  their  development  probably  earlier  than  archi- 
tecture proper,  we  find  them  united,  with  the  marble 
statuary  adorning  the  temples  and  also  the  temples 
themselves  stained  or  painted.  Only  by  a  gradual 
differentiation  and  mutual  limitation  do  sculpture  and 
painting  become  later  free  and  independent  arts.  Pure 
sculpture  renounces  color  and  the  portrayal  of  actual 
space,  limiting  itself  rather  strictly  to  representation 
of  form.  Simultaneously  there  is  an  advance  beyond 
architecture  in  that  the  artist  has  now  freed  himself 
and  his  art  from  certain  embarrassing  utilitarian 
problems.  Instead  of  the  presentation  symbolically 
and  merely  suggestively  of  aspects  and  fragments  of 
personal  experience  there  is  in  sculpture  a  develop- 
ment toward  completer  organization  and  a  certain 
unification  of  such  elements  in  the  objective  represen- 
tative of  the  person.  All  material  not  necessary  for 
the  expression  of  the  sculpturesque  idea  is  chiseled 
carefully  away,  so  that  form  and  content  stand  in  a 
characteristic  relationship  of  balance  and  poise.  Free- 
dom is  shown  by  the  artist  in  the  selection  of  typical 
or  representative  poses  that  shall  manifest  not  merely 
some  particular  action  but  the  general  capacity  and 
possibility  of  the  body  for  a  wide  range  of  action,  as 
in  the  Discobolus.  In  sculpture,  moreover,  as  Hilde- 
brand  has  made  clear,  depth  or  the  third  dimension  is 
given  to  us  in  idea,  without  the  necessity  of  actual 


166  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

visual  accommodation  as  in  the  perception  of  real 
depth  in  natural  objects;  that  is,  through  a  closer  uni- 
fication of  the  dimensions  in  the  work  of  art  attention 
is  facilitated  and  we  experience  a  corresponding  in- 
crease in  freedom. 

In  classic  sculpture,  where  the  sculpturesque  prob- 
lem consisted  chiefly  in  the  presentation  of  the  body, 
statues  are  nude  or  more  lightly  draped  than  in  real 
life,  even  with  the  naturally  artistic  Greek  clothing, 
which  manifests  easily  the  freedom  of  bodily  move- 
ments. Inartistic  modern  clothing,  however,  with  its 
mathematically  exact  lines  succeeds  in  masking  or  in 
boxing  up  the  body  to  such  an  extent  that  the  sculptor 
is  able  to  reveal  freedom  (with  the  greatest  difficulty) 
only  by  such  disposition  of  the  folds  of  coat  and 
trousers  as  shall  show  graceful  free  lines;  by  the 
draping  of  national  heroes  with  flags,  etc.;  and  by  the 
portrayal  of  character  in  poses  and  particularly  in 
the  lines  of  the  face.  To  a  certain  extent  the  inner 
personal  life  may  be  revealed  in  sculpture  through  the 
structure  of  the  eye  and  its  socket,  the  brow,  and  in 
the  modeling  and  conformation  of  the  muscles,  as,  for 
example,  in  the  meditative  sculpture  of  Praxiteles  and 
in  the  emotional  works  of  Scopas  and  the  later  Hel- 
lenistic school.  The  monotonous  stone  and  bronze 
can,  however,  in  general  suggest  merely  the  broader 
aspects  of  personality;  whereas  the  medium  of  color, 
with  its  highly  differentiated  variations  of  light  and 
shade,  is  able  to  express,  particularly  in  the  eye  (which 
in  sculpture  is  comparatively  lifeless),  much  finer 
differentiation  of  psychic  life,  feeling,  moods,  and 
action.  Painting  thus  marks  from  one  point  of  view  an 
advance  over  sculpture  as  a  direct  result  of  its  material. 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       167 

Midway  between  sculpture  and  painting  might  be 
placed  the  so-called  graphic  arts  of  etching,  drawing 
in  black  and  white,  and  recently,  in  the  hands  of 
Maskell,  Demachy,  Coate,  Craig-Annan,  Puyo,  and 
others,  artistic  photography.  Renouncing  color  proper, 
or  chrome,  these  take  for  their  material  various  inten- 
sities of  colorless  light,  by  means  of  which  they  are 
able  to  present  space  with  considerable  differentiation 
of  feeling.  Their  problem,  like  that  of  sculpture,  is 
chiefly  one  of  form;  and  it  seems  rather  significant  in 
this  connection  that  certain  great  colorists,  notably 
Rembrandt  and  Whistler,  have  sought  and  found 
under  the  limitations  of  etching  expression  of  form, 
voluntarily  renounced  by  them  in  the  field  of  paint- 
ing. 

Modern  photography,  as  Sizeranne  points  out,  has 
become  an  art  rivaling  at  its  best  good  work  in  the 
other  graphic  arts.  In  such  work  personality  is  every- 
where in  evidence  in  the  selection  of  scenes,  groups, 
poses,  costumes,  and,  above  all,  in  the  developing  and 
toning,  which  in  ordinary  photography  is  purely 
mechanical.  To-day  the  artist-photographer  is  able 
to  intervene  in  the  developing,  printing,  enlarging, 
and  combining  processes  to  such  an  extent  that  he 
may  secure  modulations  and  gradations  of  light  and 
shade,  creating  at  will  high  lights  and  low  lights,  soft- 
ening lines,  blurring  and  effacing  unimportant  details 
and  accentuating  others  in  accordance  with  a  given 
plan  or  artistic  idea,  until,  from  one  and  the  same 
objective  scene,  several  artistic  pictures  may  be  ob- 
tained, differing  widely  from  one  another  and  repre- 
senting, in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  process  of  pro- 
duction is  still  rather  more  mechanical  than  in  the 


168  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

other  allied  arts,  not  mechanism  chiefly  and  not  ec- 
centric individuality,  but  personality. 

Motion  pictures  up  to  date  have  been  limited  chiefly 
to  a  slavish,  mechanical  imitation  of  the  stage-play 
and,  in  general,  to  a  quite  trivial  content  suited  to 
the  taste  of  the  industrial  masses.  Muensterberg  has 
shown,  however,  that  a  new  form  of  art  is  probably 
developing  here  with  special  possibilities  of  its  own. 
The  material  proper  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  graphic 
arts,  and  when  fully  conscious  of  its  peculiar  possibili- 
ties and  limitations  the  motion  picture  should  be  able 
to  bring  its  special  interpretation  of  reality  in  its  own 
silent  material,  aided  perhaps  by  music  or  lyric  verse, 
and  dispensing,  like  true  painting,  with  the  prosaic  and 
oftentimes  tactless  labels  to  the  scenes.  At  present 
most  of  the  plays  presented  consist  merely  of  stories 
in  telegraphic  form  thrown  on  the  screen  and  illus- 
trated by  pictures.  Lyric  productions,  like  that  by 
Annette  Kellerman  in  "A  Daughter  of  the  Gods," 
represent  perhaps,  in  spite  of  many  quite  obvious 
defects,  the  most  successful  efforts  in  this  general 
field.  In  such  works  as  these  a  greater  unity  might  be 
secured  by  appropriate  lyrical  transitions  between  the 
scenes  shown,  together  with  emphasis  on  the  musical 
aspects  of  the  verse  and  accompanied  perhaps  by 
suitable  interpretative  music.  In  this  latest  sphere  of 
art  there  are  doubtless  unrealized  possibilities  of  an 
epic  and  dramatic  nature;  but  in  any  case  its  develop- 
ment into  true  art  depends  on  its  being  rescued  and 
freed  (by  dignified  screen  artists  like  Pauline  Fred- 
erick and  by  some  playwright  of  real  capacity)  from 
the  vulgarity  and  maudlin  sentimentality  that  now  in- 
fest the  films. 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       169 

Painting  rises  into  freedom  in  differentiation  from 
painted  sculpture,  carving,  and  tattooing,  revealing 
even  in  its  developed  form,  like  sculpture  and  the  other 
arts,  the  common  origin  and  interdependence  of  all 
art.  Painting  is  sculpturesque  in  the  case  of  Man- 
tegna  and  Verrochio;  epic  in  the  works  of  Giotto; 
lyric  in  Duccio,  Dolci,  Reni,  Corot,  or  van  der  Wey- 
den;  and  dramatic  in  Titian.  In  any  case  painting  is 
not  at  all  concerned  with  the  imitation  of  nature, 
which  is  seen  clearly  here  to  be  an  impossibility. 
Even  in  portraiture,  where  at  first  thought  an  ac- 
curate imitation  would  seem  requisite,  freedom  de- 
mands an  interpretative  presentation  of  character. 
*'Vart  n'est  pas  une  etude  de  la  realite  positive;  c'est  une 
recherche  de  la  verite  ideate, ^^  the  saying  of  George 
Sand,  is  well  illustrated  here. 

All  painting,  even  that  of  landscape,  serves  as  a 
revelation  of  personality.  Sometimes  it  is  the  sub- 
jects which  are  the  bearers  of  the  idea,  when  the  artist 
in  a  typical  Shakesperian  manner  effaces  or  loses  him- 
self in  his  theme,  as  did  Velasquez  and  Holbein; 
sometimes  it  is  the  artist  himself,  as  in  the  case  of 
Van  Dyck,  who  reveals  to  us  in  himself  a  typical  char- 
acter or  a  characteristic  point  of  view.  Even  in  a 
landscape  there  is  regularly  some  detail,  now  a  person, 
now  an  object  of  human  creation,  or  some  isolated 
and  emphasized  natural  object  that  arouses  specific 
human  interest  or  intensifies  the  consciousness  of  per- 
sonal values;  while,  by  virtue  of  its  coloring,  toning, 
direction  of  line,  and  composition,  the  whole  land- 
scape may  be  imbued  with  a  specific  mood  or  an 
emphatic  presentation  of  what  Lanier  calls  "the  vast 
sweet  visage  of  space"  that  brings  a  sense  of  some- 


170  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

thing  transcendent  and  ineffable  peculiar  to  this  field 
of  art.  It  has  been  maintained  that  the  chief,  if  not, 
indeed,  the  only  purpose  of  landscape  painting,  is  to 
give  this  intense  experience  of  space,  the  objects  of 
the  composition  being  accessory  or  merely  subsidiary 
to  the  production  of  this  exalted  consciousness,  which 
Berenson  describes  as  "the  feeling  of  being  identified 
with  the  universe — which  is  the  very  essence  of  the 
religious  emotion."  It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this 
connection  that  the  love  of  landscape  painting  de- 
velops pari  passu  with  the  establishment  of  large 
industrial  centers,  whose  inhabitants,  cut  off  as  they 
are  from  any  considerable  experience  of  space  and 
vista,  seek  and  find  compensation  for  this  want  in 
the  works  of  the  landscape  artist. 

The  completest  definition  of  aesthetic  experience  is 
poetry,  where  we  find  in  a  sense  the  epitome  of  the 
other  arts.  The  material  of  poetry  is  no  longer  tones 
simply,  the  bearers  of  vague,  general  meaning  as  in 
music,  but  words  as  the  vehicle  of  ideas.  The  artistic 
value  of  language,  contrary  to  the  opinion  that  finds 
"all  words  equally  poetical,"  consists  in  certain  felici- 
tous combinations  of  vowels  and  consonants,  fusions 
or  complications  of  various  kinds  of  imagery,  chro- 
matic accent,  cadence,  assonance,  alliteration,  rime, 
collocations  of  words,  etc.,  which  vary,  of  course, 
from  language  to  language  and  serve  to  render  poetry 
untranslatable  even  into  prose  of  the  same  language. 
The  function  of  rime,  contrary  to  the  opinion  of  those 
who  regard  rime  as  an  impediment,  is  to  free  the 
verse  from  the  tyranny  of  mechanical  rhythm,  and 
marks,  as  Lipps  pointed  out  years  ago,  a  difference 
comparable  with  the  transition  from  a  state  of  society 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       171 

where  the  individual  counts  for  little  and  the  law  is 
everything  to  a  condition  where  law  in  the  abstract 
becomes  subordinated  to  the  needs  and  purposes  of 
the  individual.  Rime,  when  used  with  strictly  mechan- 
ical rhythm,  stands  in  antithesis  to  the  latter,  pro- 
ducing then  a  humorous  effect,  as  for  example  in  the 
lines  of  Walt  Mason.  Rime  when  properly  used  uni- 
fies the  verses  and  strophes  in  various  significant  ways, 
and  by  concentrating  the  attention  on  the  end  of  the 
verse,  as  a  goal  for  the  movement  in  it,  permits  more 
freedom  of  substitution  in  the  individual  feet  of  the 
verse  than  is  possible  in  the  verse  of  antiquity. 
Trochees  may  thus  take  the  place  of  iambics  or  even 
of  anapests,  and  vice  versa,  for  the  sake  of  logical 
accent  or  movement,  so  that  the  verse  gains  in  flexi- 
bility and  freedom  of  expression.  Rime  has  also  an 
analytic  and  synthetic  function.  As  it  synthesizes  the 
verses  into  strophes  by  concentrating  the  attention 
upon  similar  sounds,  it  analyzes  the  thought  units 
into  elements  which  gain  a  relative  independence.  In 
this  way  the  stanza  as  a  whole  becomes  at  one  and  the 
same  time  more  complex  and  more  unified.  Such 
verse,  freed  as  it  is  from  the  comparative  monotony 
and  rigidity  of  stricter  rhythm,  is  more  expressive  of 
personality;  while  for  special  themes  like  that  of 
"Thanatopsis,"  where  the  inflexibility  and  uniformity 
of  law  needs  to  be  emphasized,  we  have  rhythm  alone, 
that  is,  blank  verse.  Free  verse,  so  called,  seems  to  be 
an  attempt  to  get  rid  of  all  law;  in  other  words,  it  is 
licentious  in  the  aesthetic  sense  of  the  word. 

In  epic  poetry  the  persons  stand  out  for  us  in  an 
objective  plastic  manner,  like  the  figures  of  sculpture 
and  painting;  in  the  lyric  we  find  again  the  spirit  of 


172  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

music;  while  in  the  drama  these  two  forms  of  poetry 
are  united.  In  the  epic  the  artistic  idea  is  a  series  of 
heroic  deeds  presented  not  immediately  as  in  the 
drama,  but  in  poetic  narration  as  a  train  of  historical 
events;  it  is  history  in  germ  or  history  with  particular 
emphasis  on  artistic  expression.  The  deeds  portrayed 
and  interpreted  are  gathered,  of  course,  from  widely 
different  sources  and  are  then  exaggerated,  harmon- 
ized with  one  another,  and  fused  imaginatively  by 
various  authors  into  heroic  or  superhuman  unities  and 
demigods.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection 
that  the  two  Greek  epics  give  us  in  Odysseus,  the  man 
of  wisdom,  and  in  Achilles,  the  man  of  action,  ideal 
objectifications  of  intellect  and  will.  The  lyric  is  like 
music  subjective;  and  in  this  form  of  poetry  we  are 
introduced  through  imaginative  description  to  the 
emotional  sources  in  which  overt  acts  in  some  way 
take  their  origin.  The  lyric  in  its  purity  reveals,  not 
specific  deeds,  but  their  general  possibility  in  the 
private  aspects  of  personal  life.  A  given  lyrical  back- 
ground of  love  and  hate,  joy  and  sorrow,  etc.,  offers  the 
material  for  specification  and  definition  in  numberless 
dramas.  In  the  drama,  finally,  we  find  the  clearest  mani- 
festation of  personality  in  the  immediate  presentation 
of  a  struggle  of  wills,  rooted  in  the  clash  of  conflicting 
interests. 

In  comedy  the  struggle  is  either  merely  apparent 
or  transparently  specious — a  mere  play;  the  issues  are 
never  important  enough  to  preclude  their  reconcilia- 
tion; and  the  characters  lack  grandeur  or  are  humanly 
all  too  human.  The  typical  comic  figure  is,  in  fact,  a 
kind  of  sham,  claiming  freedom  and  perfection  until 
unmasked  by  the  irony  of  events.    By  the  reaction  of 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       173 

the  environment  upon  which  he  acts  he  is  revealed  as 
more  or  less  ridiculously  weak,  limited,  and  mechani- 
cal; by  pillorying  him  the  artist  announces  his  own 
superiority  to  the  fools  these  mortals  be,  and  we  laugh 
with  him  in  aesthetic  consciousness  of  a  freedom  su- 
perior to  that  of  the  comic  figure,  without  raising  the 
question  as  to  whether  in  the  affairs  of  life  we  behave 
much  differently. 

In  genuine  tragedy,  however,  vitally  important 
ideals  which  cannot  be  compromised,  and  uncompro- 
mising characters  as  the  incarnations  of  such  ideals, 
are  involved;  there  is  in  tragedy  not  a  mere  play  or 
simple  opposition  of  conflicting  forces,  but  a  genuine 
antagonism  to  the  death.  The  tragic  character  is  one 
for  whom  the  internal  law  of  his  nature  is  supreme; 
he  comes  (neither  rightly  nor  wrongly,  for  the  question 
of  poetic  justice  is  a  doubly  false  issue  imported  from 
the  field  of  morals)  like  Romeo,  Othello,  or  Richard 
III  into  inevitable  and  irreconcilable  conflict  with  the 
will  of  his  environment.  His  action  upon  this  in  the 
initial  stages  of  the  tragedy  is  followed  in  the  later 
parts  by  its  reaction  which  destroys  him.  The  tragic 
character  must  die  (like  Turgeneff's  sparrow),  not  in- 
deed to  satisfy  poetic  justice,  but  to  satisfy  causality 
and  in  order  that  we,  through  the  sense  of  his  loss, 
may  come  to  have  a  proper  appreciation  of  his  real 
value  aesthetically.  His  willingness  to  die  for  his  life- 
purpose  attests,  as  nothing  else  can,  his  genuineness; 
we  know  then  certainly  that  he  has  not  been  sham- 
ming. 

This  is  without  doubt  what  Edgar  Allan  Poe  had  in 
mind,  when  he  maintained  that  the  most  artistic 
object  is  a  beautiful  woman  lying  cold  in  death;  for  at 


174  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

such  a  time,  because  we  value  our  possessions  most 
when  we  have  lost  them,  her  aesthetic  value  would 
indeed  become  enhanced.  The  excellence  of  the  hero's 
personaHty  in  the  tragedy  is  impressed  upon  us 
through  the  fact  that,  though  pitted  against  some- 
thing stronger  than  the  force  of  any  isolated  individual 
will,  he  is  yet  able  to  struggle  with  it  to  the  very  end. 
The  characteristic  tragic  feeling  is  a  mixed  emotion, 
consisting  of  joy  in  the  contemplation  of  an  ideally 
free  personality,  limited  and  tempered  by  sorrow  at 
his  loss  and  by  awe  for  the  superindividual  power  that 
compasses  his  destruction.  To  say,  as  has  been  done, 
that  the  struggle  of  the  tragic  hero  must  end  in  failure 
is  surely  to  measure  success  and  failure  by  external, 
apparent  consequences  rather  than  by  inner  purposes. 

Poetry,  music,  and  dancing  were  closely  associated 
in  the  primitive  song  and  dance  and  the  intimate  re- 
lationship still  persists.  Poetry  and  music  in  some 
form  seem  to  be  as  original  and  fundamental  as 
any  of  the  arts;  and  their  appeal  to-day  is  perhaps 
more  general  than  that  of  other  forms.  For  the 
majority  architecture,  sculpture,  and  painting  are  far 
from  being,  even  in  a  quite  legitimate  sense,  "frozen 
music";  and,  except  in  the  case  of  highly  speciaHzed 
talent,  the  full  appreciation  of  these  arts  probably  pre- 
supposes a  certain  development  of  taste  through  expe- 
rience with  poetry  and  music.  The  fundamental 
significance  of  musical  sense  seems  also  to  be  suggested 
by  the  results  of  recent  research,  according  to  which 
persons  specifically  designated  as  "musical"  are  regu- 
larly found  to  be  highly  gifted  in  other  respects. 

Moreover,  it  appears  that  art  experience  in  general, 
in  spite  of  those  who  believe  that   "nature  is  more 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       175 

beautiful  than  art,"  first  teaches  us  to  see  the  beauty 
of  nature;  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  beauty  in  the 
world  of  natural  objects  is  really  discernible  except 
from  the  platform  of  liberalizing  art  experience.  It 
was  not  the  savage  or  the  rustic,  neither  the  man  in 
the  street  nor  the  man  in  the  laboratory,  who  dis- 
covered (amid  much  ugliness  of  color,  form,  etc.)  the 
beauty  of  forest  and  field  and  stream,  but  poets  and 
the  great  landscape  painters.  Only  the  artist-genius 
and  the  lover  of  art  may  detect,  through  the  chaotic 
presentations  of  the  natural  world,  the  harmoniously 
ordered  reality,  the  freedom  at  the  heart  of  the  world, 
as  did  Plato  and  Wordsworth;  and  thus  it  is  indeed 
true  that  "poetry  is  the  elder  sister  of  philosophy," 
without  which  the  latter  and  even  science  itself  cannot 
exist.  Art,  philosophy,  science,  and  morality  are 
never  mere  adjustments  or  simple  adaptations  in 
reaction  to  a  given  environment,  but  transformations 
and  interpretations  that  regularly  transcend  the 
environment. 

It  is  perhaps  the  keen  awareness  of  spontaneity  in 
his  own  consciousness  that  has  called  forth  so  often 
from  the  artist -genius  the  emphatic  but  mistaken  pro- 
test that  art  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  rules  or 
laws.  On  the  one  hand  it  seems  to  be  clear  enough 
that  while  all  art  is  expression,  not  all  expression  is 
art;  but  on  the  other  it  is  probably  above  debate  that 
the  perfectly  correct  is  often  far  enough  removed  from 
the  artistic.  True  art,  great  art,  is,  however,  never 
capricious  and  licentious  (in  the  aesthetic  sense), 
though  regularly  violating  worn-out  conventions  that 
claim  absolute  validity.  Its  aesthetic  truth  is,  indeed, 
its   freedom,   but   freedom   implies   above   all   things 


176  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

poise  and  balance  (not  rest),  being  here  and  always 
autonomous — voluntary  self-control  under  law,  living- 
law,  the  fact  of  noblesse  oblige. 

Art  works  are  beautiful  only  in  so  far  as  the  artist 
succeeds  in  expressing  himself  under  the  limitation  of 
general  art  laws,  the  specific  conditions  of  a  given  art 
medium  and  a  selected  artistic  idea.  The  artist  must, 
for  example,  affirm  the  universal  law  of  symmetry, 
but  his  subjection  to  this  must  not  be  absolute 
and  mathematically  exact.  A  too  great  regard  for 
symmetry  and  abstract  proportion  and  "repose"  is 
artificial  and  fails  to  satisfy  a  mature  taste.  There  is 
even  an  art  of  the  "poker-face"  variety  that  arouses 
disgust  through  its  studied  lack  of  expression. 

In  a  thing  of  the  natural  world,  such  as  a  crystal,  a 
tree,  a  rose,  or  a  lily,  the  most  absolute  realization  of 
symmetry  and  proportion  seems  satisfying  aestheti- 
cally, because  it  seems  to  manifest  the  exceptionally 
free  and  lawful  development  of  the  given  object, 
struggling  toward  organization  against  an  apparently 
opposing  environment.  When  it  succumbs,  as  in  the 
gnarled  and  twisted  tree  that  has  been  thwarted  in  its 
development,  we  get  a  painful  experience  of  the  ugly 
in  nature.  When  it  triumphs,  we  triumph  with  it. 
We  seem  then  to  pierce  the  veil  of  phenomena  and  to 
find  ourselves  in  contact  with  reality  to  a  degree 
seldom  realized  in  the  contemplation  of  natural  ob- 
jects; because  of  lack  of  perspective  and  insight,  im- 
perfection regularly  overwhelms  and  oppresses  us  in 
the  world  of  things. 

Our  delight  in  such  organic  things,  however,  hardly 
seems  to  equal  the  thrill  aroused  by  the  unification 
and    organization    of    impulses    and    instincts    in    the 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       177 

animal  form;  and  the  reality  of  this  form,  which  is 
in  very  truth  the  animal,  is  probably  revealed  less 
clearly  in  the  perfect  "repose"  of  sleep  or  death  than 
in  poised  attitudes  and  graceful  movements.  Trained 
animals,  and  persons  like  Dumas'  Sapho,  attract  us 
aesthetically,  until  we  know  the  secret  of  their  mechan- 
ical activities,  because  we  find  here  the  illusion  of 
character  and  personality.  A  natural  songster  may 
express  its  exuberant  and  joyous  freedom  "in  profuse 
strains  of  unpremeditated  art"  and  we  are  delighted 
as  in  the  artless  life  of  the  child;  but  the  adult  human 
singer  must  show  seemly  poise  and  control  of  his  instru- 
ment, if  he  is  to  arouse  an  experience  of  beauty.  It 
seems  that  aesthetic  satisfaction  depends  upon  our 
finding  reality,  whether  at  rest  or  in  motion,  in  stable 
equilibrium  with  itself,  such  that  it  emphasizes  itself 
as  law  amid  the  apparently  chaotic  and  formless,  and 
as  autonomy  is  in  the  presence  of  automatism  or 
manifest  anarchy. 

The  realm  of  beauty  (of  tones,  of  color  and  line, 
of  word  and  phrase,  marble  and  porcelain  and  bronze) 
subjects  the  one  who  enters  that  domain  to  laws  that 
are  felt  not  as  external  determination  but  as  internal 
aesthetic  obligation.  Harmonies  and  contrasts  in  art 
are  beautiful  when  they  are  not  absolute  but  free. 
The  octave  is  the  most  perfect,  but  not  the  most 
beautiful  chord;  and,  even  in  the  elementary  expe- 
riences that  underlie  the  higher  combinations,  the  pure 
tone  of  the  tuning-fork  and  the  pure  colors  are  of 
less  value  aesthetically  than  the  rich  tones  of  the 
violin  and  the  deep,  rich  colors.  Merely  technical 
scientific  terms  fetter  the  imagination,  which  is  stimu- 
lated to  freedom  through  the  old,  natural  words  rich 


178  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

in  overtones.  Free-hand  lines,  soft  or  brilliant  strokes 
of  the  burin,  and  ornamentation  executed  with  the  ax 
of  the  Norman  mason  are  all  of  them  beautiful;  while 
ruled  lines,  photo-engraving,  and  machine-made  orna- 
ments, no  matter  how  perfect  their  execution,  are 
unfree  and  ugly.  This  fundamental  and  essential 
quality  of  beauty  is  touched  on  without  being  ex- 
plicitly stated  in  an  approving  criticism  of  Whistler's 
etching  by  Hans  Singer  when  he  says:  Dass  es  in  der 
Kunst  so  etwas  wie  eine  gerade  Linie  ueberhaupt 
nicht  gibt,  haben  auch  zahllose  andere  gefunden,  und 
haben  darnach  gesucht,  dieser  "Luege  der  Natur"  zu 
steuern,  die  Starrheit  der  Form  zu  mildern.  Keiner 
fand  eine  so  glueckliche  Loesung  wie  Whistler.  Bei 
scharfer  Beobachtung  mit  der  Lupe  sieht  man  oft,  wie 
er  die  Form  geschmeidiger  macht,  nicht  etwa,  indem 
er  die  Linie  zittriger  fuehrt,  sondem  indem  er  sie  in 
ein  System  von  zwei  ganz  nebeneinander  parallel 
laufenden  Einzellinien  aufloest,  die  sich  synkopieren. 

Freedom  is,  moreover,  manifested  in  the  selection  of 
the  artistic  idea  capable  of  being  incorporated  in  the 
given  art  medium — the  underlying  theme,  in  fact,  of 
the  "Laokoon."  "The  sensuous  medium  of  each  art,'* 
says  Walter  Pater,  "brings  with  it  a  special  quality  of 
beauty,  untranslatable  into  the  forms  of  any  other,  an 
order  of  impressions  distinct  in  kind.  Good  painting 
and  sculpture  attempt  to  present  nothing  that  cannot 
be  manifested  in  color  and  stone  without  the  use  of  a 
label  or  title.  Music  as  such  is  always  "song  without 
words."  The  opera  presents  and  develops  its  action 
differently  from  the  drama  in  verse;  and  this  in  turn 
quite  differently  from  the  prose  drama.  Freedom  is 
also  shown  in  a  subtle  manner  in  the  treatment  of  the 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       179 

details  of  the  chosen  artistic  theme.  The  lines  of 
Raphael,  for  example,  in  the  Sistine  Madonna,  though 
more  restrained  than  those  of  Murillo  and  Coreggio  in 
similar  works,  are  nevertheless  freer  and  more  beau- 
tiful, while  the  pictorial  idea  as  a  whole  possesses  a 
dignity  and  divinity  not  found  in  the  human,  some- 
what theatrical  madonnas  of  the  last  two.  If  the 
purpose  of  Raphael  had  been,  furthermore,  to  express 
primarily  beauty  of  the  body,  as  in  the  case  of  a  dancer 
or  athlete,  the  clothing  might  have  been  omitted  alto- 
gether or  so  disposed,  as  in  Sargent's  charming  "Car- 
mencita,"  as  to  reveal  and  emphasize  posture  and  the 
general  possibilities  of  free  movements.  Ribera's  club- 
footed  boy  is  a  sublime  masterpiece,  a  ringing  chal- 
lenge to  the  ugly  in  nature,  but  it  would  have  been 
ugly  and  pathetic,  as  in  real  life,  if  the  artist  had 
attempted  to  show  the  boy  dancing  or  performing 
some  movement  requiring  dexterity  of  limb.  "The 
Nike  of  Samothrace"  lives  and  has  its  very  being  in 
the  free  movement  of  its  drapery,  but  the  "Discobolus'* 
draped  in  any  way  would  be  intolerable.  The  "Lao- 
koon"  with  wide  open-mouth,  as  Lessing  says,  would 
indeed  have  had  a  distorted  face,  but  since  the  style 
is  the  man,  it  would  also  have  revealed  to  us  a 
certain  lack  of  freedom  in  the  artist  and  the  race  he 
might  represent,  of  which  they  would  indeed  be  quite 
unaware.  In  the  severe  lines  of  Pallas,  as  in  the  more 
graceful  lines  of  Aphrodite,  we  find. freedom  in  differ- 
ent guises,  and  though  both  statues  in  their  special 
organization  of  parts  are  lawful,  free,  beautiful,  the 
head  of  one  transferred  to  the  body  of  the  other  would 
reveal  lawlessness,  license,  ugliness.  We  should  have 
the  lawlessness  that  is  seen,  though  in  a  minor  degree. 


180  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

in  the  tolerable  incongruity  of  head  and  body  in  the 
Discobolus. 

The  inorganic  intermingling  of  architectural  styles, 
the  unrestrained  skyscraper,  the  squat  or  square  build- 
ing of  our  crowded  streets,  Gothic  structures  on 
hilltops  and  Parthenon-hke  buildings  in  the  level  plain 
are  ugly  and  the  other  fields  of  art  teem  with  similar 
aberrations.  Arbitrary  Klingerism,  geometrical  and 
exaggerated  sprawling  poses  in  sculpture  or  painting; 
glaring  and  flashy  or  timid  color  effects  (as  distin- 
guished from  skillful  touches  of  color  in  subdued  color 
schemes  and  the  free  use  of  color  by  the  great  color- 
ists) ;  too  great  or  too  little  contrast  in  light  and  shade 
(as  compared  with  their  masterly  reconciliation  in 
Rembrandt  and  Correggio);  uncertain  modeling,  hard 
lines,  and  extremes  of  impressionism;  flesh  like  marble 
or  chalk  and  brutal  imitations  of  flesh  tints;  emaciated 
bodies  (Cranach)  and  voluptuous  portrayal  of  bodily 
forms  (Rubens  and  Correggio);  mechanically  precise 
music,  unrestrained  rag-time  and  the  abandon  of  jazz; 
sing-song  cloying  variations  that  cling  too  closely  or 
those  that  depart  too  widely  from  the  musical  theme; 
mechanically  faithful  as  well  as  eccentric  interpreta- 
tion in  playing  or  singing;  jingle  instead  of  real  func- 
tioning rime;  vers  d'esclave  and  more  recently  vers 
licencieux  (as  distinguished  from  the  vers  libre  that 
great  poets  have  regularly  written);  ornament  for 
ornament's  sake;  anachronisms  and  other  inconsisten- 
cies in  the  development  of  a  novel's  plot;  ranting  ac- 
tors and  ranting  playwrights;  snakelike  movements 
and  contortions  or  awkwardness  in  gesture  and  gait; 
too  few  or  too  many  details:  the  extremes  of  the  gro- 
tesque and  of  naturalism  in  any  field  of  art — these 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       181 

are  all  of  them  in  their  effects  unlovely  because  unfree 
and  serve  merely  to  reemphasize  the  old  truth,  "/» 
der  Beschraenkung  zeigt  sich  der  Meister.'^ 

In  the  study  of  Raphael  from  his  earliest  imitations 
of  Perugino  and  the  Umbrian  School  up  to  the  mas- 
terpiece just  mentioned  we  may  trace  a  continuous 
development  in  the  expression  of  freedom  (also  ob- 
servable in  other  great  artists  and  schools);  and  a 
comparison  of  the  successive  periods  of  art  history 
discloses  a  similar  evolution.  The  life-quality  of  a 
people  or  an  epoch  is  clearly  seen  in  its  art.  Whether 
we  view  it  in  the  architecture  of  Egypt  or  Assyria, 
Oriental  art  is  comparatively  mechanical,  mathemati- 
cally perfect,  conventional,  and  unprogressive;  its  chief 
characteristic  is  the  irresponsible,  awe-inspiring  force 
of  a  culture  that  suggests,  as  Hegel  said,  "a  Memnon 
waiting  for  the  dawn  of  the  Greek  spirit."  Greek  and 
Roman  art  in  general  marks  decided  advances  in  the 
expression  of  organic  perfection,  Roman  art  being, 
however,  for  the  most  part  imitative,  ostentatious, 
and  unfree.  In  sculpture  the  progress  is  seen  histori- 
cally from  Egyptian  works  dominated  mechanically  by 
what  Lange  called  the  "law  of  frontality"  to  freedom 
of  body,  head,  and  face  in  Greek  art  and  to  the  sub- 
lime expressiveness  of  Michelangelo;  from  the  slavish 
particularity  of  Oriental  portrait  statues  to  the  free- 
dom of  types  like  the  "Nike  of  Samothrace";  from 
groups  in  which  the  composition  is  slavishly  symmetri- 
cal to  the  free  grouping  in  the  pediments  and  friezes  of 
the  Greek  temples.  In  music  the  historical  develop- 
ment is  seen  from  simple  melody  through  polyphony 
to  explicit  harmony;  from  the  simple  harmony  of  the 
octave  through  the  fifth  to  the  musical  mastery  of  the 


182  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

third;  from  the  musical  suite  and  the  merely  mechani- 
cal sonata  to  its  free  treatment  in  Beethoven,  etc. 
With  respect  to  form  there  is  a  general  progress  in 
art  from  rather  slavish  symmetry  to  free  proportion. 
From  the  psychological  or  psycho-physical  point  of 
view  we  might  come  to  see  that  beauty  is  always  due 
to  an  harmonious  adjustment  of  inner  relations  to 
outer  relations.  We  might  analyze  and  describe  both 
sets  of  conditions,  explaining  the  present  experience 
by  a  continual  reference  to  past  experience  and  finding 
the  ultimate  causes  for  the  phenomena  of  art  in  cer- 
tain prehistoric  Ungs  and  other  geniuses,  who  have 
molded  the  aesthetic  consciousness  of  "their  tribes  that 
were  blind";  we  might  account  for  their  choice  of  art 
medium,  their  subjects,  and  even  certain  details  in 
their  methods  of  treatment  through  a  reference  to 
physiological,  social,  and  environmental  factors  of 
various  kinds;  we  might  discover  art  originating  ap- 
parently in  more  or  less  awkward  and  realistic  imita- 
tions of  nature,  conceivably  useful  in  the  beginning 
but  subsequently  modified  and  idealized  into  useless- 
ness;  and  we  might  accomplish  this  important  deter- 
mination of  facts  in  infinite  regress  without  under- 
standing the  general  characteristic  of  beauty  already 
indicated,  without  discovering  the  ground  or  possi- 
bility of  the  beautiful  object  as  such,  and  without 
inquiring  whether  the  aesthetic  experience  ends  in 
itself  or  has  perhaps  some  further  significance.  For 
the  mere  hedonist  the  aesthetic  experience  is  suffi- 
ciently accounted  for  by  empirical  description  and  a 
reference  to  the  universal  desire  for  pleasure  alleged 
to  be  the  chief  or  the  sole  aim  of  human  beings.  For 
Kant,  however,  aesthetic  experience  has  a  fundamental 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  LIFE      183 

significance  first  emphasized  by  him  in  the  Critique  of 
the  Judgment.  In  this  work,  which  serves  as  the 
maturest  thought  of  the  author  to  reinterpret  the 
earlier  critiques,  he  points  out  that  aesthetic  sense 
forms  a  kind  of  bridge  or  hyphen  between  theoretical 
and  practical  reason. 

The  possibility  of  knowledge  for  Kant  lies  in  the 
categories  when  applied  (not  temporally  but  logically) 
to  the  material  furnished  by  the  senses.  Theoretical 
reason  is  limited  to  objects  of  possible  experience  and 
never  reaches  the  ground  of  empirical  objects,  the 
transcendental  thing  by  itself;  because  this  is  not 
given  under  the  general  conditions  of  space  and  time 
and  cannot  be  reached  causally;  that  is,  the  thing  by 
itself  has  neither  spatial  nor  causal  predicates.  For 
theoretical  reason,  freedom,  like  God  and  immortality, 
is  a  mere  idea,  incapable  either  of  demonstration  or  of 
refutation.  In  the  Critique  of  Practical  Eeason,  how- 
ever, Kant  makes  it  clear  that  freedom  is  real  and 
that  it  constitutes  the  possibility  of  all  conduct  that  is 
distinctively  human.  The  fact  of  moral  obligation 
reveals  freedom  as  its  necessary  implication.  Natural 
laws,  far  from  invalidating  freedom,  are  indeed  sub- 
ordinate to  it,  but  this  subordination  is  not  for  Kant 
a  function  of  theoretical  reason. 

Now,  while  scientific  knowledge  is  a  computation 
(as  Hobbes  put  it,  an  addition  and  subtraction),  there 
are  nevertheless  among  the  objects  of  the  phenomenal 
world  some  which  are  not  susceptible  of  such  treat- 
ment, namely,  the  living  organisms.  Wholes  which 
are  merely  aggregates  may  be  handled  by  a  method 
of  analysis  and  synthesis;  but  wholes,  like  organisms, 
in  which  the  parts  are  functions  that  get  their  meaning 


184  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

from  the  idea  of  the  whole  in  which  they  are  impKed, 
transcend  the  hmits  of  theoretical  reason  or  scientific 
thinking.  These  objects  are  not  mere  aggregates  that 
change;  they  grow  and  develop.  Whatever  develops 
must  develop  into  something.  Viewed  as  progressive 
stages  in  evolution,  instead  of  as  objects  of  knowledge, 
the  phenomena  in  question  are  bearers  of  purpose, 
manifesting  the  general  character  of  self-determina- 
tion. Since,  now,  the  existence  of  such  objects  is 
undeniable,  while  they  are  for  science  miracles  that 
cannot  be  understood  theoretically  and  mechanically, 
they  can  be  thought  of  only  as  ideas  and  purposes. 
They  belong  not  to  the  world  of  science,  but  to  the 
intelligible  world,  and  must  be  interpreted  from  the 
point  of  view  of  philosophy.  In  this  necessity  the 
subordination  of  nature  to  freedom  is  revealed. 

Kant  suggests,  furthermore,  as  Schopenhauer  em- 
phasizes later,  that  the  thing  by  itself,  the  transcen- 
dental object,  is  in  some  sense  identical  with  the 
transcendental  subject  of  knowledge;  so  that  the 
objects  of  the  natural  world  that  demand  a  teleological 
interpretation  must  be  considered,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  reflecting  judgment,  as  concrete  manifes- 
tations of  the  will  to  live  which  develops  them  and 
their  parts  as  functions  necessary  to  its  purposes. 
Life,  then,  so  far  as  revealed  in  the  so-called  objective 
world  would  abut  on  freedom  and  will;  life  is  for 
science  and  mechanical  causality  a  limit-notion.  Such 
interpretation  has,  moreover,  an  a  priori  foundation  in 
aesthetic  experience. 

For  Kant  the  beautiful  is  that  which  arouses  a  dis- 
interested, universal,  and  necessary  feeling  of  com- 
placency or  delight  by  virtue  of  its  accord  with  the 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       185 

conditions  of  selfhood.  ^Esthetic  satisfaction  is  a 
purely  subjective  condition  of  free  contemplation, 
concerned  only  with  the  subjective  aspect  of  the 
object;  but  the  fact  that  in  this  state  we  are  con- 
scious secondarily  that  the  object  is  beautiful  is 
grounded  in  some  peculiarity  of  the  object  that  can 
be  understood  from  the  point  of  view  of  science  as 
little  as  the  life  manifested  in  the  organisms.  Only  in 
aesthetic  experience  do  we  obtain  the  key  for  interpre- 
tation of  any  kind,  because  here,  and  here  only,  do  we 
find  an  adequate  realization  of  freedom  and  the  in- 
trinsic adaptation  of  elements  to  a  common  end,  an 
awareness  of  unity  of  purpose  and  organic  perfection 
that  enables  us  to  transcend  and  synthesize  the  dis- 
jecta membra  of  the  objective  world.  Because  of 
aesthetic  sense  we  are  able  to  interpret  the  natural 
organisms  and,  indeed,  the  whole  external  world 
teleologically.  The  ground  of  aesthetic  experience 
itself  and  the  whole  world  of  art  (as  well  as  that  of 
thought  and  conduct)  is,  then,  for  Kant  as  for  his 
disciple  Schiller,  free  purposive  personality. 

Only  in  the  art  world  do  we  find  "things  molded  to 
the  heart's  desire."  In  the  contemplation  of  the  work 
of  art  we  live  in  it,  identifying  ourselves  with  it  in- 
stinctively and  sympathetically,  and  experiencing  then 
a  completer  realization  of  self,  a  more  exalted  sense  of 
personality  than  is  possible  on  the  plane  of  everyday 
life  with  its  continual  compromises.  The  masterpiece, 
so  far  as  we  possess  it,  is  a  subjective  construction 
whose  elements  are  drawn  from  our  innermost  life,  but 
purified  then  and  raised  to  an  unwonted  degree  of 
intensity  that  gives  at  times  a  mysterious  sense  of 
potentiality  and  reserve  force  not  easily  accounted  for 


186  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

by  the  object  contemplated.  "En  art  il  ne  faut  pas 
tout  dire.^^  In  this  sense  indeed  "suggestiveness  is  the 
height  of  art,"  involving  at  the  least  a  kind  of  hero- 
worship. 

The  characteristic  delight  (as  distinguished  from 
mere  pleasure  attached  to  ordinary  activities)  of  the 
aesthetic  experience  is  due  to  the  instinctively  realized 
accord,  the  thrill  of  agreement,  between  our  free 
selves  and  the  spirit  manifested  in  the  beautiful  ob- 
ject. We  are  in  such  experience  truly  at  one  with 
the  other  and  are  so  satisfied  with  the  consciousness  of 
its  existence  and  discovery  that  we  concern  ourselves 
for  the  time  being  with  it  alone.  The  aesthetic  absorp- 
tion proceeds  from  the  fact  that  for  persons  noth- 
ing is  so  supremely  fascinating  and  valuable  as  that 
which  reveals  free  personality,  no  exaltation  so  great 
as  that  which  flows  from  the  sense  of  spontaneous, 
triumphantly  successful  activity,  perfect  economy  of 
psychic  force,  as  contrasted  with  the  cabined,  crib- 
bed, confined  striving  of  ordinary  practical  life.  While 
other  experiences  in  their  incompleteness  involve  a 
reference  to  the  past  and  to  the  future,  the  aesthetic 
experience  transcends  such  reference  to  time  and  is 
complete  in  itself.  Feeling  is  not  here  an  end  in  itself 
— it  never  is — but  a  sign  or  symptom  of  the  completest 
functioning  we  know.  The  beautiful  object  proceeds 
from  freedom  and  functions  to  develop  freedom,  a 
freedom  that  is  no  longer  a  goal  or  a  problem,  but  a 
realized  condition.  The  experience  is  disinterested, 
not  merely  in  the  sense  that  it  can  be  shared  by  others, 
as  Bain  says,  but  in  so  far  as  in  it  we  are  freed  from  the 
burden  of  strenuous  practical  and  theoretical  interests. 
We  do  not  desire  to  own  the  work  of  art  for  individual 


A  PERSON ALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       187 

use  and  enjoyment,  but  are  content  to  possess  it  in 
contemplation.  We  are,  in  fact,  interested  and  eager 
to  put  it  in  some  public  place  to  be  shared  by  others, 
as  one  hastens  to  repeat  a  good  joke  without  a  thought 
of  its  utility  to  us  or  to  others.  We  do  not  in  the 
moment  of  aesthetic  appreciation  attend  to  its  physical 
constitution  or  to  its  technique,  nor  do  we  desire  to 
analyze  it  in  scientific  abstraction.  The  experience  is 
immediate  and  necessary  in  the  sense  that  the  object 
(for  example  the  triad  c,  e,  g  as  contrasted  with  c,  d,  e) 
delights  us  immediately  and  necessarily ;  but  the  neces- 
sity, like  that  which  leads  to  a  true  conclusion  in  rea- 
soning, is  felt,  not  as  hindrance  and  restraint,  but 
merely  as  limitation.  While  at  one  with  the  spirit  of 
the  object  we  find  ourselves  in  this  activity  more  truly 
at  one  with  ourselves  than  elsewhere.  We  yield  to  the 
influence  of  the  beautiful  object,  but  willingly  and 
gracefully  in  activity  that  is  neither  toward  it  nor 
away  from  it  but  in  it. 

Variety  is  the  spice  of  art,  since  it  provides  occasion 
for  free  activity  in  the  contemplating  subject.  Objec- 
tively it  reveals  to  us  personality  that  is  freely  crea- 
tive instead  of  passively  mechanical,  habitual,  and 
slavish.  Chaotic  variety,  however,  taxes  the  freedom 
of  attention  beyond  its  capacity,  revealing  objectively 
caprice  and  lawlessness.  Ugliness  means  subjectively 
the  failure  to  cosmetize  such  a  chaos,  objectively  it 
means  the  awareness  of  such  a  spirit.  Both  beauty 
and  ugliness  are  expressions  of  life,  so  that,  depending 
on  the  grade  of  culture  in  the  artist  and  the  race  of 
which  he  is  the  representative,  we  have  on  the  one 
hand  expressions  of  freedom;  while  on  the  other  we 
have   the    consciousness    of   a   comparatively   unfree 


188  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

spirit,  expressing  and  even  revelling  in  disorder,  dis- 
cord, and  mere  passion  (which  is  always  ugly,  as  Poe 
points  out  in  the  Poetic  Principle,  and  the  cause  of  our 
bondage,  as  Spinoza  insists).  Even  in  the  represen- 
tation of  objects  naturally  ugly  the  great  artist  will 
show  us  beauty,  freeing  by  his  creative  act  that  which 
in  itself  is  chaotic,  unfree,  and  cramped  in  expression. 

In  so-called  naturalistic  art  we  find  a  slavish  attempt 
to  reproduce  faithfully  the  world  of  phenomena.  The 
function  of  the  artist  is  conceived  here  (in  the  spirit  of 
positivistic  natural  science  of  the  latter  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century)  not  as  a  *'recherche  de  la  vSriti 
idSale,"  but  as  an  "itude  de  la  rialite  positive."  From 
this  point  of  view  art  is  not  properly  selective  and 
interpretative  but  merely  imitative;  and  appreciation 
sinks  to  the  level  of  an  estimate  of  technical  skill. 
The  standard  of  excellence  would  then  be  that  given 
us  in  the  alleged  contest  of  Zeuxis  and  Apelles  in 
which  the  former  deceives  the  birds  with  his  picture 
of  fruit  and  the  latter  tricks  the  former  to  such  an 
extent  that  he  takes  the  painted  curtain  for  a  real  one 
concealing  a  competing  picture.  This  is  not  only  a 
modern  view  of  art  but  that  of  Plato  and  probably 
even  of  Aristotle,  and  it  is,  in  fact,  on  account  of  his 
theory,  which,  indeed,  contradicts  the  practice  of  the 
Greek  artists,  that  Plato  excludes  the  artist  from  the 
plan  of  his  Republic.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
personalism  the  productions  of  naturalism  must  neces- 
sarily receive  scant  consideration. 

In  realism  art  rises  into  freedom  in  the  presentation 
of  significant,  typical,  and  universal  aspects  of  expe- 
rience. The  attitude  of  the  artist  is  selective  and  re- 
veals to  a  considerable  extent  free  personality.    Orien- 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       189 

tal  art,  for  example,  gives  us  particularistic  portraits 
of  kings  victorious  in  battle,  while  Greek  art  shows  us 
the  "Nike  of  Samothrace,"  which  typifies  Victory  in 
general  and  is  freed  in  its  treatment  from  the  imitative 
impulse  of  mere  portraiture.  The  realist  starts,  like 
Browning  in  the  "Ring  and  the  Book,"  with  a  theme 
selected  from  the  factual  world  and  interprets  and 
modifies  it  creatively  with  the  purpose  of  securing 
greater  unity  and  coherence  in  the  resulting  work  of 
art. 

An  idealistic  treatment  involves  a  greater  subordina- 
tion of  a  given  subject  matter  to  an  artistic  ideal  and 
though  the  limits  (between  this  form  of  art  and  real- 
ism on  the  one  hand,  and  between  ideahsm  and  the 
grotesque  on  the  other)  are  often  diflScult  to  determine, 
they  are  in  general  fairly  well  defined.  The  Greeks 
and  Shakespeare  are,  for  example,  reahstic  in  their 
method.  "There  is,"  as  has  been  well  said,  "no 
Shakesperian  point  of  view.  We  are  left  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  world  of  types,  no  one  of  which  is  preferred  or 
indorsed  by  the  artist,  that  is,  he  does  not  use  them  as 
vehicles  to  indicate  his  appreciation  of  life.  The  atti- 
tude of  Goethe  is  similar,  while  Schiller,  Tennyson, 
Byron,  Wordsworth,  Dante,  and  others  interpret  life 
from  the  vantage  ground  of  a  clearly  marked  world- 
view.  In  the  extremes  of  the  grotesque  and  fantastic 
we  find  reality  considerably  distorted  in  absolute  sub- 
jection to  some  controlling  ideal,  as  in  the  excesses 
of  romanticism. 

Beauty  is  ia  the  first  instance  an  actual,  affective 
state  of  consciousness,  an  act  of  synthesis,  a  feeling  of 
worth  or  delight  in  the  completest  realization  of  free- 
dom we  can  know;  it  is  not  a  predicate  of  the  beautiful 


190  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

object  except  through  a  sort  of  transference  in  the 
process  of  aesthetic  judgment.  In  so  far  as  it  exists 
for  me  both  form  and  content  of  the  beautiful  object 
are  my  own  product.  Its  beauty  is  not,  however, 
subjective  in  the  sense  that  it  is  accidental,  a  mere 
"special  to  me."  Just  as  nobody  when  uttering  a 
judgment  in  mathematics  or  physics  is  persuaded  that 
the  judgment  is  true  for  him  alone,  though  well  aware 
that  many  men  are  and  probably  always  will  remain 
ignorant  of  these  sciences,  so  one  finds  an  inexpugnable 
element  in  aesthetic  judgment  to  consist  in  an  objective 
reference.  If  persons  really  believed  in  the  particular- 
ity and  incommunicability  of  this  sort  of  experience, 
how,  pray,  could  we  account  for  the  infinite  pains 
taken  by  artist  and  critic  to  impart  to  us  their  treas- 
ures? Even  failures,  like  that  of  Michelangelo  with 
the  Brutus  head,  emphasize,  at  least  in  the  intention, 
this  objective  reference  of  the  judgment  which  consti- 
tutes its  universality. 

It  is  equally  clear  that,  while  beauty  is  objectively 
grounded,  it  is  in  nowise  an  analytic  predicate  of  any 
physical  thing;  and  none  of  the  predicates  of  the 
phenomenal  world  may  be  applied  to  it  without  pro- 
ducing nonsense.  It  is  in  the  physical  world  as  little 
as  "happiness"  in  the  happy  brook,  "utility"  in  the 
useful  tool,  or  "interest"  in  the  object  possessing  in- 
terest. It  can  be  seen  with  the  physical  eye  no  more 
than  force  in  the  perceived  effects  of  force,  or  a  good 
intention  in  the  overt  act.  Beauty  is  not  red  or  green, 
heavy  or  light,  long  or  short;  it  is  not  to  the  right,  in 
the  center  or  in  the  periphery  of  the  beautiful  painting, 
nor  is  it  the  function  of  any  or  all  the  notes  of  a  musi- 
cal composition.    The  arrangement  of  elements  in  the 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       191 

so-called  beautiful  object  may  well  be  the  immediate 
causal  correlate  of  bodily  movements,  glandular 
changes,  etc.,  concomitant  with  kinsesthetic  sensa- 
tions in  the  contemplating  subject;  but  even  though 
we  should  be  able  to  reduce  the  aesthetic  experience  to 
such  sensations  we  should  not  thereby  (unless  sensa- 
tions are  movements)  have  located  beauty  in  the 
physical  realm.  We  look  truly  here  not  upon  the 
things  that  are  seen  but  upon  the  things  that  are 
unseeable,  "the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land." 
Beauty  is  not  there  at  all,  but  here  and  beyond,  this 
and  thaty  not  now  and  then,  but  eternal.  Unity  in  va- 
riety, symmetry  and  proportion  may  suffice  for  a 
merely  formal  solution  of  aesthetic  problems,  but  if  we 
seek  for  beauty  in  the  concrete  we  can  find  it  only  in 
the  manifestations  of  free,  purposive  personality. 

In  a  search  for  the  possibility  of  the  great  creations 
of  art  we  are  thrown  back  ultimately  to  a  study  of 
those  inspired  personalities  who  sit  closer  to  reality  than 
the  masses  of  men  in  their  day.  Impelled  and  reinforced, 
like  the  mystic,  the  reformer,  and  the  martyr,  by  a 
strong  sense  of  freedom  (the  quod  nequeo  monstrare 
et  sentio  tantum  of  which  Coleridge  spoke),  they 
regularly  burst  the  bonds  of  political,  moral,  aesthetic, 
and  intellectual  conventions,  false  to  the  spirit  of  the 
past,  and  channel  new  paths  for  themselves  and  for 
humanity.  While  in  one  sense  the  product  of  their 
epoch — the  highest  crest  of  an  evolutionary  wave — they 
seem  in  another  profounder  sense  more  than  this,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously  "participating,"  as  Shelley 
thought,  "in  the  eternal,  the  infinite,  and  the  One." 
They,  for  the  world  movement  as  a  whole,  are  like  the 
few  isolated  acts  of  free  choice  in  the  midst  of  mechani- 


192  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

cal  habits  in  the  individual,  and  they  mold  both  their 
own  and  subsequent  periods  by  virtue  of  their  sublime 
spontaneity.  This  is  the  significance  of  the  mysterious 
creative  impulse,  or  Spieltrieb,  by  means  of  which  the 
genius,  as  Plautus  said,  "seeks  and  finds  what  pre- 
viously existed  nowhere."  It  is  what  both  Raphael  and 
Beethoven  suggest  when  they  say  that  they  found  in 
their  own  souls  something  they  could  discover  in  no  work 
of  nature.  Lanier  means  the  same  thing  in  his  poem 
entitled  "Individuality."  Back  of  their  categorical  crea- 
tions the  experience  of  average  mortals  does  not  go. 

The  psychology  of  genius,  like  the  psychology  of 
instinct  and  feeling,  reminds  one  of  the  saying  of 
Emerson  that  in  skating  over  thin  ice  our  safety  lies 
in  our  speed.  Genius  itself  in  its  fragmentary  and 
cryptic  utterances  has  been  perhaps  too  prone  to 
overemphasize  the  "poeta  nascitur  non  fit,"  as,  for 
example,  when  Whistler  in  the  famous  Ruskin  trial 
went  so  far  as  to  assert  that  there  are  neither  artistic 
peoples  nor  artistic  periods,  though  admitting  that 
some  periods  and  peoples  offer  less  resistance  to  the 
efforts  of  the  artist  than  do  others.  On  the  other 
hand,  paralleling  Hegel's  retort  to  Talleyrand  that  no 
man  is  a  hero  to  his  valet  because  the  valet  is  not  a 
hero,  it  is  clear  that  we  are  lacking  in  proper  first-hand 
information,  because  few  geniuses  have  attempted  to 
communicate  their  artistic  experience  to  the  world 
except  through  their  works  of  art.  What  we  know  is 
obscure  and  fragmentary,  consisting  for  the  most  part 
in  the  recognition  of  a  mysterious  fact,  together  with 
the  enumeration  of  certain  general  characteristics. 
Genius  appears  under  most  unexpected  conditions, 
and  there  is  no  rule  for  its  production.    Corresponding 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       193 

to  the  special  fields  to  which  the  genius  devotes  him- 
self there  are  important  and  significant  differences  of 
endowment,  but  along  with  these  go  by  general  agree- 
ment certain  qualities  common  to  the  class,  such  as 
the  possession  of  a  prodigious  memory,  great  emo- 
tional capacity,  extraordinary  power  of  selective  at- 
tention and  will,  combined  often  with  eccentricity  of 
various  kinds  and  a  sense  of  personal  dignity  and 
worth  amounting  at  times  almost  to  conceit.  Accord- 
ing to  all  accounts,  the  genius  is  not  merely  a  represen- 
tative man,  but  in  some  sense  one  who  speaks  or 
assumes  to  speak  in  the  name  of  all  reality. 

Primarily  the  work  of  art  is  a  free  construction  in 
consciousness,  an  objectification  or  imaginative  inter- 
pretation of  an  exuberant,  enthusiastic  state  of  the 
self  in  the  case  of  such  supermen,  in  some  sense  an 
"inner  imitation"  in  the  presence  of  some  natural 
object  at  the  start,  but  nevertheless  free,  constructive, 
refining  contemplation.  Secondarily,  art  is  a  technical 
convention  for  fixing  and  recording  such  states,  or 
for  communicating  them  to  others,  through  an  appeal 
to  their  imagination.  The  individual  for  whom  such 
a  work  of  art  is  to  exist  must  recreate  the  same  for  him- 
self, guided  and  controlled  in  his  experience  by  the 
interpreting  spirit  of  the  art-leader,  who  produces  the 
externalization  under  the  guidance  of  what  he  com- 
monly calls  his  inspiration.  Just  as  a  reasoner  must 
reconstruct  for  himself  from  merely  conventional  signs 
the  thought  of  the  person  he  would  understand,  so  the 
art  lover  must  reproduce  in  free  imaginative  construc- 
tion the  real  work  of  art  in  the  spirit  of  the  artist,  of 
which  the  externalization  is  never  more  than  an  im- 
perfect and  unsatisfactory  representative. 


194  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

The  inartistic  layman  for  the  most  part  sees  even 
living  things  as  mere  aggregates,  so  that  if  asked  to 
draw  or  to  picture  to  himself  a  familiar  animal  like  a 
horse,  he  finds  (when  at  best  he  can  imagine  some  of 
the  parts)  that  he  cannot  join  them  properly.  He 
has  not  observed  how  the  parts  connect  or  organize 
themselves.  The  artist,  on  the  other  hand,  masters 
and  synthesizes  the  manifold  of  his  experience,  recon- 
ciling contradictions  and  seeing  things  organically;  he 
finds,  as  Coleridge  saw,  "the  freedom  and  movement 
of  life  in  the  confining  form."  Great  artists  never 
take  machines  but  only  organisms  or  that  which  must 
be  interpreted  organically  for  their  subjects;  and  great 
art  creations,  just  because  they  are  never  mechanical 
in  their  origin,  can  never  be  understood  mechanically 
(as  Taine  and  others  have  thought)  nor  reproduced 
mechanically  by  rule  of  thumb.  Every  attempt  to  do 
so,  whether  by  meistersinger  and  noisy  huckster-poets, 
or  by  imitating  pupils  and  virtuosi  who  have  not 
caught  the  secret  spirit  of  the  master,  or  by  the  copy- 
ist with  his  slavish,  hesitating  line  and  faltering  color, 
merely  emphasizes  by  violent  contrast  the  essential 
nature  of  all  true  art;  true  art  is  never  thus  artificial. 

Great  art,  the  grand  style,  whether  in  lines,  pos- 
tures, colors,  tones,  words,  actions,  or  composition, 
manifests  always  one  and  the  same  spirit.  Whether 
the  genius  show  us  "what  swimmeth  below  when  the 
tide  comes  in,"  "the  light,  level,  and  aerial  illusions  of 
Italian  sunsets,"  "the  glint  of  light  on  a  haystack," 
or  that  which  rests  on  the  face  of  a  madonna,  he  will 
in  any  case  present  us  not  merely  "objectified  emo- 
tion" unqualified,  but  typical  manifestations  of  free- 
dom.   If  he  shows  us  joy  or  passion,  it  will  never  be 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       195 

unrestrained  and  licentious,  but  (as  in  the  maternal 
love  of  the  Sistine  Madonna)  idealized,  rationalized, 
shot  through  with  law;  and  when  he  leads  us  to  the 
very  depths  of  human  sorrow,  there,  too,  we  shall 
find,  as  in  the  Greek  stele,  Michelangelo's  "Pieta,"  or 
in  much  misunderstood  "Hamlet,"  noble  self-control, 
autonomy,  "a  temperance  that  may  give  it  smooth- 
ness." Beauty  is  objectively,  freedom  of  a  line,  of  a 
posture,  a  color,  light  and  shade,  a  tone,  a  movement, 
etc.;  or  freedom  manifested  in  their  combinations 
under  general  and  specific  freely  accepted  law-giving 
limitations;  freedom  and  purification  of  the  sensibil- 
ity, just  as  truth  is  free-thinking  under  the  limitations 
of  logical  laws,  and  good  conduct  is  action  under  the 
limitation  of  freely  accepted  moral  laws. 

At  times  defective  technique  or  faulty  materials  may 
prevent  an  individual  or  an  epoch  from  adequate  mani- 
festation of  experience,  leaving  us  the  impression  of 
profundity  mingled  with  gaucherie.  On  the  other  hand, 
accomplished  technique  for  technique's  sake,  paint  for 
paint's  sake  (particularly  in  periods  of  decadence  lack- 
ing in  freedom  and  confusing  the  uniformity  of  law 
with  necessity)  may  revel  in  the  obtrusive  presenta- 
tion of  itself  or  serve  to  reveal  an  all  too  human  or 
even  subhuman  content.  Blase  nerves  in  such  un- 
healthy periods  revel  in  emotion  for  emotion's  sake 
and  demand  the  spicy,  sensational,  and  burlesque  in 
art,  as  the  depraved  appetite  of  the  pampered  sybarite 
the  taste  of  putrid  meats.  Moreover,  the  corrupted 
taste  may  come  to  seem  the  norm,  just  as  through  con- 
stant association  the  piano  out  of  tune  may  come  to 
be  preferred  by  an  originally  normal  ear.  The  great 
masters,    however,    free    and    refine    themselves    (and 


196  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

through  them  their  race  and  the  epochs)  in  fashioning 
the  work  of  art  (in  either  sense),  making  known 
through  an  ever-difiFerentiating,  ever-developing  series 
of  particular  externalizations  the  creative  spirit  re- 
vealed in  their  innermost  life,  and  thus  bearing  wit- 
ness, consciously  or  unconsciously,  to  the  universal 
spirit  of  absolute  reality.  The  world  of  art,  taken  as 
a  whole,  is  one  gigantic  example  of  infinite  variety 
manifesting  progressively,  throughout  the  ages,  the 
unifying,  organizing  spirit  of  freedom.  In  this  sense 
beauty,  like  the  other  two  aspects  of  reality,  would  be 
for  us  a  goal  until  the  end  of  time,  an  unfinished  sen- 
tence, although  as  in  the  "Flower  in  the  Crannied 
Wall,"  and  in  the  realization  of  the  good  in  each  good 
deed,  the  universal  would  be  really  immanent  and  living 
in  each  particular. 

The  arrangement  of  the  elements  in  the  externaliza- 
tion  of  the  artist  results  in  phenomenal  forms  express- 
ing a  real  content;  it  reveals  not  merely  the  artist 
himself  and  his  epoch  with  various  tendencies  and 
idiosyncrasies,  but  ultimately,  at  least  in  the  case  of 
real  genius,  something  more  fundamental  and  univer- 
sal. Nobody  has  been  more  persuaded  of  this  than 
certain  great  artists  who  have  felt  themselves  inspired; 
and  they  tell  us,  at  times  with  great  assurance,  that 
their  works  interpret  merely  suggestively  and  inade- 
quately a  vast  background  of  inner  experience  but 
vaguely  adumbrated  by  the  artist  himself;  and  these, 
in  any  case,  must  be  our  authorities  of  last  resort. 
^Esthetic  experience  has  been  for  them  a  sort  of 
ecstasy,  like  that  described  by  Plato  in  the  Phsedrus, 
coming  only  at  rare  moments  and  irregularly.  For 
them,  if  their  report  be  trustworthy,  it  has  been  some- 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART        197 

thing  akin  to  religion  and  their  works  have  been  a 
kind  of  language  for  communicating  something  as 
much  deeper  than  thought  as  thought  itself  is  deeper 
than   speech. 

The  transcendent  masterpieces  of  art  may  be,  as 
Grant  Allen  says,  "the  last  link  of  a  chain  whose  first 
link  began  with  the  insect's  selection  of  bright-hued 
blossoms";  but  they  are  also  in  all  epochs,  whatever 
their  subjects  may  happen  to  be,  like  transparencies 
in  the  general  veil  of  mystery  that  surrounds  the  race, 
through  which  we  gain  in  especially  thrilling  moments 
glimpses  that  seem  to  reassure  us,  immediately  and 
prior  to  all  reasoning,  of  our  essential  kinship  with 
absolute  reality.  We  experience  then,  in  the  accord 
between  our  free  selves  and  the  free  spirit  of  the 
universe  in  this  or  that  concrete  manifestation,  the 
consciousness  that,  even  as  here,  in  spite  of  the  con- 
tradictions and  paradoxes  of  life,  all's  right  with  the 
world  as  a  whole.  Abutting  on  real  freedom,  not  on 
caprice  or  blind  mechanism,  it  may  be  trusted  practi- 
cally. We  realize  this  instinctively,  but  when  we 
reflect  upon  it  we  may  well  think  with  Dante  of  an 
influence  that  "inwills"  us,  che'ri  suo  voter  ne  invoglia. 
We  may  understand  too  in  the  same  spirit  Goethe's 
declaration:  Wer  die  Kunst  hat,  der  hat  Religion^  wer 
die  Kunst  nicht  hat,  der  hahe  Religion;  as  well  as  the 
assertion  of  still  another  inspired  artist  that  "art  is 
God's  grandchild;"  for  art  that  is  worthy  of  the  name 
is  rooted  in  sublime  personality,  and  personality  has 
its  solid  basis  in  freedom. 

When  a  person  speaks  to  us  the  words  are  nothing 
substantial,  nothing  abiding;  they  pass  swiftly  while 
the  meaning  remains.    As  the  externalization  of  con- 


198  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

cepts  they  serve  to  mark  out  and  to  fix  for  our  atten- 
tion and  retention  important  aspects  described  in  the 
changing  world  of  nature.  They  themselves,  whether 
spoken  or  written,  are  indeed  only  special  arrange- 
ments and  modifications  of  that  realm,  the  •  latest 
conventionalized  skeletons  of  what  were  once  poems 
and  (in  writing  derived  from  hieroglyphics)  paintings; 
they  represent,  in  varying  degrees  of  abstraction,  stages 
on  the  way  from  aesthetics  to  logic,  summations  or 
condensations  of  experience,  living  concentrations  of 
psychic  force  by  which  we  act  upon  the  immediate 
present.  By  means  of  these  as  tools  we  grasp  in  the 
eternal  becoming,  truth  that  is,  truth  that  it  required 
ages  of  human  effort  to  discern  and  which  without 
these  instruments  would  pass  unnoticed  by  us.  In 
the  practical  field,  too,  we  find  in  a  relatively  stable 
form  other  instruments,  "the  lengthened  shadows"  of 
innumerable  known  and  unknown  reformers  who  have 
molded  the  conscience  of  the  race.  In  a  similar  man- 
ner the  artist  manipulates  and  organizes  into  typical 
forms  the  elements  of  the  world  of  experience,  fixing 
for  himself  and  for  us  in  the  becoming,  aspects  of 
beauty,  shorthand  records  to  remind  himself  and  the 
rest  of  us  of  something  caught  by  his  glance  in  the 
apparently  chaotic,  incoherent  flux. 

The  externalization,  that  is,  the  communication  of  this 
real  work  of  art  in  stone  and  bronze,  or  even  in  monu- 
menta  acre  perennius,  persists  only  somewhat  longer 
than  the  spoken  word:  it,  too,  like  the  artist's  body, 
his  brain,  his  detachable  tools,  and  the  rest  of  the 
constant  flux,  is  transitory.  We  feel,  however,  that 
Leonardo,  for  example,  abides  not  merely  and  chiefly 
in  the  works  of  his  contemporaries,  but  that  he  must 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART      199 

persist  as  an  immortal  "moment"  in  universal  history, 
even  though  the  bare  fragment  of  him  we  now  iden- 
tify with  certainty  should  pass  beyond  the  recognition 
of  mankind,  as  has  indeed  happened  with  Apollodorus, 
Apelles,  Zeuxis,  and  their  unknown  civilized  and  sav- 
age predecessors.  The  aesthetic  truth  discovered  by 
them,  the  true  principles,  by  means  of  which  new 
syntheses  of  past  and  present  beauty  are  here  and 
now  possible,  would  still  remain  functioning  in  spite 
of  temporary  aberrations  and  lapses  of  art-memory, 
as  the  inalienable  possession  of  men. 

Art,  as  the  organization  and  modification  of  ele- 
ments in  space  and  time,  would  be  like  the  rest  of 
nature,  "not  existence  but  speech,"  while  art  as  a 
spiritual  possession  would  not  be  in  that  realm  any 
more  than  thought  exists  in  libraries.  It  would  not 
be  merely  the  "holding  of  a  mirror  up  to  nature,"  as 
one  great  realist  said,  but  would  consist,  rather,  in 
finding  nature  itself  always  a  mirror  of  the  super- 
natural. The  substratum  of  communication  would  be, 
then,  for  us  ultimately  the  free  World-Ground;  and  to 
that  extent  we  should  agree  with  Malebranche  that  in 
some  sense  all  things,  art  works  along  with  the  rest, 
are  seen  by  us  in  the  World-Ground.  Art,  as  the  most 
immediate  and  human  revelation  of  beauty,  leads 
eventually  to  the  height  from  which  in  perspective  the 
natural  world  appears,  notwithstanding  all  apparent 
discord,  imperfection,  and  failure,  as  a  cosmos  and  in 
some  sense  a  work  of  supreme  art,  a  theurgy  and  a 
theophany.  We  can  well  agree  with  Walter  Pater 
that  "the  ideal  end  of  Greek  sculpture,  as  of  all  other 
art,  is  to  deal,  indeed,  with  the  deepest  elements  of 
man's  nature  and  destiny." 


200  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Of  course  the  meaning  is  not  that  all  this  is  con- 
sciously present  or  is  explicitly  involved  in  the  produc- 
tion or  in  the  contemplation  of  a  given  work  of  art. 
The  reactions  there  are  surely  unpremeditated.  We 
and  the  artist  abandon  reflection  largely  in  apprecia- 
tion. Nevertheless  the  judgment,  it  is  beautiful,  con- 
tains implicitly  the  subjective  and  objective  reference 
indicated,  just  as  the  familiar  impersonal  judgment: 
it  snows:  implies  with  subjective  and  objective  refer- 
ence the  true  but  unfamiliar:  I  snow:  of  Emerson;  he 
himself  in  the  "Conduct  of  Life"  calls  beauty  "in  its 
largest  and  profoundest  sense  one  expression  for  the 
universe." 

Positivistic  and  agnostic  writers  have  intimated  that 
the  period  is  perhaps  not  far  off  when  art,  like  religion, 
may  be  cast  aside  like  a  worn-out  garment,  and  even 
Ruskin  says  somewhere  that  he  can  imagine  a  period 
of  the  future  when  art  shall  have  been  outgrown  be- 
cause its  content  will  have  been  realized  in  other  ways 
by  men.  However  that  may  be  for  the  enlightened, 
the  hedonist,  and  the  industrial,  it  seems  in  general 
rather  plain  that  art  in  some  form  should  continue  to 
function  in  human  life  at  least  until  the  time  comes 
when  "the  great  world-struggle  of  developing  thought," 
as  George  Eliot  puts  it,  shall  no  longer  be  "continually 
foreshadowed  in  the  struggle  of  the  affections  seeking 
a  justification  for  love  and  hope";  that  is,  until  expe- 
rience shall  have  been  completely  rationalized.  "Some- 
times," says  Bowne,  "the  subject  matter  eludes  all 
articulate  thought  and  expression.  This  is  particularly 
the  case  with  the  emotional  life.  In  setting  forth  this 
deeper  life  of  feeling  and  aspiration  we  fall  back  on 
music,  art,  worship,  and  various  symbolic  activities 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       201 

which  alone  serve  to  give  voice  to  the  dumb  souls  of 
men." 

The  ubiquity  of  aesthetic  judgment  in  popular  dis- 
tinctions like  the  good  and  the  beautiful  theory  or 
proof,  the  good  life  and  the  beautiful  life,  a  beautiful 
tool,  a  beautiful  case  of  cancer,  a  beautiful  stroke  in 
tennis,  a  beautiful  play  in  other  athletic  games,  etc., 
is  explained  by  the  fundamentality  of  aesthetic  sense 
as  the  possibility  of  ideals  in  thought  and  conduct. 
Back  of  the  "will  to  know"  and  the  "will  to  realize 
ideals,"  back  of  all  "rhythmic  anticipation"  of  stimuli, 
all  attempts  at  cleanliness,  comprehension,  "work- 
manship," and  the  like,  the  first  manifestations  of 
living-law,  in  which  it  appears  that  beauty  possesses 
us  rather  than  that  we  possess  beauty,  is  the  enthusi- 
astic instinct  to  organize,  the  ordering  normative 
principle,  which  is  Heaven's  and  our  first  law  and 
upon  which  all  values  depend.  A  person  unfurnished 
a  priori  with  aesthetic  sense,  even  supposing  he  could 
think  and  act  at  all,  would  hardly  stumble  on  the 
notion  of  an  ideal  world  to  be  realized  in  thought  or 
an  ideal  self  to  be  realized  in  conduct;  for  theoretical 
and  practical  experience,  taken  in  abstractness,  would 
leave  us  impotently  fumbling  with  the  isolated  details 
of  life,  with  no  real  unities  and  totalities,  no  syntheses 
and  harmonies  of  coexistence  and  sequence,  no  free- 
dom of  thought  and  action,  no  mastery  of  experience. 
There  would  be  no  impulse  toward  truth  for  truth's 
sake,  no  art  of  thinking;  the  very  conception  of  educa- 
tion and  progress  would  seem  to  be  impossible. 

It  is  through  this  fundamental  tendency  that  we 
are  stimulated  to  the  will  to  "see  things  steadily  and 
whole,"  and  normally,  that  is,  except  in  the  case  of 


202  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  mere  aesthete,  the  experience  of  art  results  iii  a 
return  to  the  difficult  field  of  theoretical  and  practical 
life  in  a  renewed  effort  to  live  artistically.  Thus  we 
are  enabled  to  transcend  the  empirical  helium  omnium 
contra  omnes  and  come  to  the  consciousness  of  a  prin- 
ciple of  solidarity  in  the  social  order  to  which  we  are 
related  organically.  This  would  seem  in  a  sense  to 
indicate  the  importance  of  aesthetic  development,  par- 
ticularly under  the  aegis  of  democracy,  to  which  the 
modem  world  seems  irrevocably  committed.  Art  does 
not  need  democracy  or  sectarianism,  but  democracy 
and  sectarianism,  whatever  their  own  opinions  in  the 
matter  may  be,  certainly  need  art. 

It  has  long  been  a  familiar  commonplace  that  de- 
mocracy rests  in  some  vague  way  on  education  and 
culture;  but  the  danger  to  civilization  from  trained, 
irresponsible  democracy  "doing  as  it  likes,"  was  re- 
garded rather  lightly  until  the  imminent  menace  of 
universal  radicalism  without  ideals,  with  wants  but 
without  desires  and  real  purposes,  startled  men  into 
the  insight  that  democracy  militant  and  triumphant 
must  in  some  way  be  made  safe  for  the  world,  unless, 
indeed,  the  sequel  shall  "bring  the  old  Dark  Ages 
back  without  the  faith,  without  the  hope."  The 
danger  is  all  the  greater  because  of  the  blunders  and 
flagrant  injustice  with  which  democracy  in  our  own 
country  under  the  influence  of  materialistic,  sensa- 
tionalistic  philosophy,  utilitarian  ethics,  and  natural- 
istic notions  of  art  may  perhaps  be  justly  charged. 

Pragmatic  "bluffing  and  getting  by,"  "frenzied 
finance,"  "illegal  combinations  in  restraint  of  trade," 
political  corruption,  "graft,"  inhuman  conditions  of 
child   labor,    lynchings,    "shootings,"   etc.,   have   un- 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       203 

doubtedly  been  viewed  with  considerably  more  toler- 
ance in  modem  democracies  than  in  modern  mon- 
archies, whatever  may  be  the  reasons  and  whatever 
may  be  said  theoretically  of  the  two  forms  of  govern- 
ment. The  citizen,  in  such  democracies  as  we  have 
had,  has  not  failed  to  look  out  for  number  one  in  a 
sense  not  intended  perhaps  by  the  proverb.  He  has 
too  often  thought  of  himself  and  his  fellow  men  in 
terms  of  mechanism,  as  individuals  instead  of  as 
persons,  because  his  own  life  has  lacked  organic  unity 
and  consistent  purpose.  The  individual  with  us  has 
usually  not  been  very  keenly  aware  of  any  organic, 
purposive  relationship  uniting  himself  and  others;  he 
has  not  regarded  society  sympathetically  as  "himself 
writ  large";  that  is,  as  the  means  for  realizing  the 
highest  personal  good  as  distinguished  from  mere 
personal  advantage  or  "enlightened  self-interest."  He 
fails,  I  believe,  rather  generally  to  attempt  some 
personal  embodiment  of  the  Platonic  ideal  of  Dikaio- 
sune,  because  he  is  for  the  most  part  far  too  busy 
staking  out  superficial  claims  to  liberty  and  equality 
to  bother  himself  overmuch  about  real  freedom  and 
fraternity.  The  spirit  of  cooperation  and  good  fellow- 
ship often  seen  in  and  between  European  classes  is 
almost  unknown  with  us;  so  that  it  almost  seems  as 
though  the  leveling  process  and  the  auri  sacra  fames 
had  resulted  not  merely  in  "insulating  the  individual," 
as  Emerson  said,  but  in  isolating  him. 

All  this  is  perhaps  due  to  a  fundamental  lack  of 
taste  and  tact  that  might  be  corrected  by  a  certain 
emphasis  on  aesthetic  and  cultural  education  gen- 
erally, conspicuous  in  our  American  life  by  its  absence. 
Under  a  form  of  government  dependent  for  its  control 


204  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  direction  largely  on  the  culture  and  initiative  of 
the  individual  it  would  seem  that  the  development  of 
taste  should  be  of  supreme  significance;  since  it  should 
bring  to  the  members  of  the  social  body  a  profounder 
consciousness  of  personal  worth,  the  solid  foundation 
on  which  any  adequate  realization  of  true  freedom 
must  surely  rest.  It  would  lead  men,  in  general,  per- 
haps really  to  believe  the  statement  of  David  Friedrich 
Strauss:  ''Das  Menschen  groesstes  Kunstwerk  ist  der 
Mensch.""  It  might  lead  to  living  harmony  and  a 
genuine  chivalry  in  the  social  group. 

The  present  outlook  for  Western  civilization  hardly 
seems  so  rosy  as  to  warrant  the  unreserved  optimism 
displayed  by  many.  Civilization  is  not  yet  safe;  no 
safer  than  it  ever  has  been.  'Wwr  der  verdient  sick 
Freiheit  wie  das  Leben,  der  taeglich  sie  erobern  muss.'* 
*'Was  Du  ererht  von  Deinen  Vaetern  hast,  erwirh  es  um 
es  zu  besitzen."  The  story  of  Faust  and  the  story  of 
the  talents  is  one  which  every  period  of  civilization 
as  every  individual  must  take  to  heart  in  order  to  ful- 
fill its  "contract  with  those  who  are  dead  and  those 
who  are  to  be  born."  It  is  not  inconceivable  that 
after  a  brief  respite  Western  life  should  decline  rapidly 
from  the  temporary  exaltation  of  the  present  moment 
to  a  plane  of  crassest  materialism  and  naturalism.  It 
may,  on  the  contrary,  rise,  sooner  than  can  now  be 
guessed,  to  another  Renaissance — to  a  reincarnation 
of  the  incomparable  spirit  of  Hellas  that  always  finds 
men  young  and  always  keeps  them  so. 

Whichever  of  these  visions  shall  become  the  reality 
may  depend  perhaps  in  a  most  vital  way,  not  on  the 
mechanical  efficiency  of  "vocational  training,"  not 
even  on  "mental  discipline,"  but,  rather,  on  the  proper 


A  PERSONALISTIC  VIEW  OF  ART       205 

functioning  of  art  and  culture  for  everybody  possible 
in  the  democratic  programs  of  the  immediate  future. 
Once  in  the  days  of  the  humanities  it  was  universally 
believed  that  only  the  liberal  arts  were  occupations 
worthy  of  freemen;  but  it  is  at  any  rate  true  and  needs 
to  be  emphasized  that  only  liberal  education  of  some 
kind,  "giving,"  as  Plato  intended,  "to  the  body  and 
to  the  soul  all  the  beauty  and  all  the  perfection  of 
which  they  are  capable,"  will  develop  free  men.  In 
spite  of  unproved  and  one-sided  assertions  concerning 
the  transference  or  nontransference  of  education  there 
is  one  phase  of  the  problem  for  which  the  discussions 
are  somewhat  irrelevant,  since  it  concerns  something 
not  intended  to  be  transferred  but,  on  the  contrary,  to 
remain  an  inalienable,  living  possession.  Inasmuch  as 
the  "completer  living"  for  which  education  is  alleged 
to  be  a  preparation  is  more  than  eating  and  drinking 
and  being  merry  with  set  purpose,  Ovid's  ancient 
statement,  ^'Ingenuas  didicisse  fideliter  artes  emollit 
mores,  nee  sinit  esse  feros,"  still  holds  its  full  measure 
of  truth. 

When  Eris  at  the  marriage  of  Peleus  threw  in  at  the 
window  the  famous  golden  apple  we  are  told  that  it 
bore  the  inscription,  'H  /caA?)  Aa/Jero).  Accordingly,  the 
prize  was  awarded  not  to  jealous,  squabbling  Hera, 
mother  of  Ares,  not  even  to  versatile,  intellectual 
Glaucopis  Ergane,  but  to  Aphrodite,  goddess  of  love, 
beauty,  and  the  "smiling,  peaceful  sea."  Both  the 
inscription  and  the  judgment  seem  appropriate.  The 
source  of  all  values  is  indeed  evil,  contradiction,  dis- 
cord; but  only  beauty  may  truly  possess  and  assimi- 
late their  fruits. 


VIII 
SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES 

Benjamin  W.  Van  Riper 

It  may  be  doubted  that,  in  its  original  formulation, 
the  law  of  Identity  and  Contradiction  was  supposed 
to  carry  with  it  any  great  insight  either  logical  or 
metaphysical.  Certainly  the  statement  that  A  is  A 
and  is  under  no  imaginable  circumstances  to  be  re- 
garded as  non-A,  has  little  dramatic  quality.  Yet,  in 
the  whole  course  of  history,  few  generalizations  have 
given  rise  to  anything  like  such  prolonged  and  acri- 
monious controversy.  In  the  eyes  of  the  chance  ob- 
server it  seems  like  a  labored  deliverance  of  an  obvious 
triviality;  to  the  Platonist  or  Hegelian  it  is  not  un- 
likely to  appear  as  very  much  the  evidence  of  things 
not  seen.  And  whatever  one's  final  opinion  of  it  now, 
it  must  be  conceded  that  for  many  centuries  the  law 
itself — even  Aristotle's  formulation  of  it — has  re- 
mained as  a  cardinal  point  of  reference  for  the  whole 
field  of  abstract  reflection. 

There  are  doubtless  many  reasons  for  this  long  and 
extraordinary  career.  Two  are  not  far  to  seek.  In 
the  first  place,  it  seems  to  be  the  innermost  citadel  of 
conceptual  thought.  The  integral  unity  of  the  con- 
cept, the  inherent  necessity  for  stability  in  the  foci  of 
thinking,  the  fundamental  exclusion  by  an  idea  of  all 
contradictory  relationships — these  read  like  the  con- 
stitution and  by-laws  of  all  mental  life.  Granted  that 
in  daily  life  the  principle  is  abstract  and  unheard-of; 

206 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    207 

it  would  certainly  seem  to  be  at  least  an  elementary 
consideration  for  any  understanding  of  thought  itself. 
For  this  it  would  be  valuable  even  if  it  never  proved 
of  any  direct  use  in  the  actual  concrete  calculations  of 
every  day. 

But  the  dialectician  does  not  leave  the  law  in  any 
such  obscure  philosophical  retreat.  Not  a  law  of  syl- 
logizing merely,  it  generally  becomes  for  him  a  dom- 
inating fact  in  the  processes  of  objective  knowledge. 
With  this  simple  change  of  context  it  may  assume  a 
most  startling  importance.  If  it  be  written,  not 
merely  that  an  idea  shall  remain  consistent  with  itself 
within  the  narrow  confines  of  the  mind,  but  that 
consistency  is  the  most  inescapable  requirement  in  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge — that  two  rationally  contra- 
dictory statements  cannot  both  be  true — one  appears 
to  stand  in  the  very  presence  of  Absolute  legislation 
itself.  By  what  transcendent  right,  one  is  inclined  to 
ask,  does  a  dry  and  abstract  rule  of  thinking  assume 
to  say  what  may  or  may  not  he  in  the  infinite  world 
outside  of  and  beyond  the  thinking  mind.^^  How  may 
it  presume  to  set  limits  to  the  antecedent  alternatives 
of  creation,  eliminating  even  from  the  realm  of  the 
possible  everything  that  fails  to  pass  the  censorship 
of  its  criterion  of  logical  coherence?  Philosophers 
were  not  slow  to  see  the  sweep  and  pretension  of  such 
acclaim,  and  so,  long  before  Kant  announced  the  syn- 
thetic activity  of  the  mind  in  the  process  of  knowl- 
edge and  constructed  his  celebrated  table  of  categories, 
the  authority  of  the  understanding  to  lay  down  at 
least  one  "condition  of  all  possible  experience"  had 
already  been  more  than  once  acknowledged — the  con- 
dition of  noncontradiction. 


208  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

To  tlie  taunt  that  so  vague  a  generalization  is  either 
tautologous  or  fanciful,  the  traditional  dialectician  has 
a  quick  reply.  This  law,  in  spite  of  its  seeming  aridity, 
may  easily  be  seen  to  be  the  constant  though  tacit 
reference  of  our  most  concrete  thinking  and  the  one 
thing  of  which  the  average  man  is  absolutely  certain. 
He  may  not  know  which  of  two  witnesses  is  telling  the 
truth,  but  he  does  know  that,  if  their  statements  are 
logically  contradictory,  one  at  least  must  be  false.  The 
scientist  likewise  accepts  it.  He,  indeed,  may  be 
open-minded  where  the  average  man  is  not.  Black 
swans,  birds  with  vertebrated  tails,  gill-slits  in  human 
throats,  mountaintops  made  of  sea  shells,  canals  on 
Mars,  degradation  of  chemical  elements,  space  bent 
through  a  fourth  dimension,  even  telepathy — there  is 
apparently  no  limit  to  his  mental  hospitality.  He 
knows  the  danger  of  declaring  anything  impossible 
ante  rem.  But  he  too  becomes  instantly  dogmatic  in 
face  of  logical  contradiction.  Tell  him  of  a  breakdown 
of  the  law  of  gravitation  and  the  scientist  is  glad  to 
receive  and  inspect  the  evidence;  tell  him  that  a  circle 
and  a  square  have  been  discovered  that  are  of  exactly 
the  same  area  and  he  laughs  you  out  of  court.  That 
can  be  shown  to  involve  a  logical  contradiction,  and 
not  the  most  cogent  evidence  of  the  senses  may  pre- 
vail against  it.  Once  dispense  with  this  criterion  and 
admit  that  two  logically  contradictory  judgments  can 
both  be  true,  and  experience  becomes  an  indiscrim- 
inate chaos;  assert  it,  and  knowledge  begins  to  shape 
itself  into  manageable  order.  So  it  would  appear  that 
this  highly  rarefied  and  desiccated  abumbration  of 
formal  logic  is,  after  all,  a  very  practical  and  indis- 
pensable rule  of  procedure.     It  thus  turns  out  that 


I 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    209 

the  statement  "A  is  A,"  when  rendered  with  all  its 
variations,  is  an  interesting  and  even  portentous 
assertion. 

While,  from  the  assumption  that  two  contradictory 
statements  cannot  both  be  true,  it  is  possible,  as  we 
saw  above,  to  launch  at  once  upon  the  dialectic  of 
idealism,  the  more  common  route  is  through  the  con- 
cept of  the  knowability  of  things.  All  conceptual 
dealing  with  the  world  assumes,  so  the  argument  runs, 
that  knowledge  is  possible,  and  from  the  fact  that 
knowledge  is  possible  one  may  finally  reach  the  con- 
clusion that  the  outer  world  is  in  some  sense  a  thought 
product,  or  is  "cast  in  the  molds  of  thought."  What- 
ever be  the  force  of  this  deduction,  better  known  as 
the  epistemological  argument,  it  is  mentioned  in  this 
connection  only  to  remark  that  it  is  essentially  the 
same  as  the  objective  reading  of  the  principle  of  non- 
contradiction. If  it  be  assumed  that  the  detection  of 
inherent  contradiction  is  what  is  meant  by  incon- 
ceivability, then  from  the  statement  that  the  incon- 
ceivable is  not  true  one  may  infer  the  obverted 
converse  that  the  true  is  conceivable — which  is  to  say 
that  the  world  is  amenable  to  thought,  or  that  knowl- 
edge is  possible.  This  has  become  the  major  premise 
of  more  than  one  philosophy.  The  object  of  what 
immediately  follows  is  to  inquire  more  in  detail  (1)  to 
just  what  degree  the  principle  of  identity  and  con- 
tradiction is  an  a  priori  principle  of  thought  and  what 
further  may  be  involved  in  it;  and  (2)  as  to  what, 
either  in  this  connection  or  in  isolation,  is  to  be  under- 
stood by,  or  inferred  from,  the  postulate  of  the  possi- 
bility of  knowledge. 


210  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

One  thing  may  be  acknowledged  in  advance.  If  we 
had  things  on  one  side  and  thought  on  the  other  whose 
function  it  was  to  penetrate  and  know  the  things;  and 
if  thought  apprehended  or  comprehended  those  things 
only  in  terms  of  ideas  which  were  essentially  the  pro- 
duct and  creatures  of  the  thinking  subject;  and  if  in 
relation  to  each  other  these  ideas  were  possessed  of 
certain  intrinsic  qualities  known  as  mutual  compati- 
bility or  consistency,  and  contradiction,  in  virtue  of 
which  the  mind  could  categorically  permit  or  deny 
certain  combinations  of  predicates  from  any  real  sub- 
ject qua  real,  then,  certainly,  thought  processes  might 
at  once  be  taken  as  a  prototype  for  the  philosophical 
understanding  of  the  world.  To  be  specific:  The 
judgment  "S  is  P"  professes  to  describe  a  certain 
reality,  "A,"  which  may  or  may  not  be  named  by  the 
grammatical  subject,  "S."  The  judgment  "S  is  P"  is 
either  true  or  false  of  "A,"  and  it  is  evident  that  the 
ground  of  this  relationship  must  be  either  *'A"  itself 
or  something  that  may,  without  loss  or  gain  or  modi- 
fication, be  substituted  for  "A."  And  so,  if  there  are 
purely  mental  qualities  of  ideas — such  as  consistency 
and  contradiction — that  can  of  themselves  to  any 
degree  mark  the  judgment  as  true  or  false,  then  those 
qualities  must  be  epistemological  equivalents  (in  the 
sense  that  the  one  may  legitimately  and  validly  be 
substituted  for  the  other)  of  some  assignable  proper- 
ties of  the  reality  in  question,  "A."  In  so  far,  that  is 
to  say,  as  the  ideas  "S"  and  "P"  have  about  them 
inherently  logical  marks  that  determine  to  any  extent 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  the  judgment  "S  is  P,"  then  to 
just  that  extent  is  "A"  built  on  a  framework  of  logical 
laws.    This  would  be  the  epistemological  argument  in 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    211 

an  irrefragible  form,  since  it  would  require  as  an 
alternative  either  the  condemnation  of  knowledge  as 
a  whole  (or  at  least  of  that  part  of  it  which  is  logical 
in  character),  or  the  acknowledgment  of  a  Reality  in 
which  mental  principles  are  structural. 

This  conclusion,  however,  hangs  from  the  combina- 
tion of  "if's"  mentioned  above.  It  is  impossible  here 
to  discuss  all  of  those  conditions.  It  is  the  third  that 
must  for  the  present  monopolize  our  attention.  Does 
the  law  of  identity  and  noncontradiction  refer  to  an 
inherently  logical  disposition  of  ideas,  or  does  it  only 
report  an  objective  and  empirical  necessity  in  dealing 
conceptually  with  things  themselves?  This  paper  is 
dominated  by  the  opinion  that  the  latter  is  the  case. 

Doubtless  it  is  a  vicious  and,  in  the  long  run,  impos- 
sible theoretical  project  to  draw  a  clear  and  distinct 
line  between  subject  and  object,  between  the  mind 
and  the  things  it  knows.  Yet  certainly  for  practical 
purposes  it  can  be  done,  and  all  traditional  discussion 
of  logical  laws  apart  from  things  presupposes  it. 
Doubtless  reasoning  is  never  rigidly  formal.  Yet,  in 
so  far  as  its  processes  can  be  described  in  abstraction 
from  their  cognitive  content  itself,  the  question  may 
fairly  be  raised  whether  any  given  principles  find  their 
locus  primarily  in  the  noetic  processes  as  such  or  in 
the  objective  field  of  intellection. 

It  probably  would  be  admitted  that  traditionally 
the  laws  of  identity  and  noncontradiction  (and  their 
correlate  of  excluded  middle)  have  been  regarded  and 
relied  upon  as  primarily  mental  principles.  The  theory 
of  the  concept  as  Socrates  sketched  it  and  as  Plato 
elaborated  it  was  the  basis  of  Aristotle's  theory  of 
judgment  and  inference.     To  see  how  direct  and  nat- 


212  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

ural  this  sequence  was  one  has  only  to  try  to  imagine 
what  the  first  formulations  of  logic  might  have  been 
had  the  original  doctrine  of  the  concept  been  along 
the  lines,  say,  of  James'  account!  It  hardly  seems 
probable  that  in  that  case  there  would  have  devel- 
oped a  logic  in  which  the  syllogism  was  basal  and  in 
which  the  laws  of  identity  and  noncontradiction  could 
express  the  fundamental  presuppositions  of  ratiocina- 
tion. But  the  original  theory  of  reasoning  did  grow 
out  of  a  view  of  concepts  as  fixed  metaphysical  and 
intellectual  entities  the  operation  of  which  would  re- 
quire, as  logical  axioms,  just  those  laws  of  thought  as 
Aristotle  stated  them. 

It  has  always  been  difficult,  however,  to  confine 
these  laws  to  the  field  of  thought,  or  to  make  them 
axiomatic.  As  an  illustration  of  this  ambiguity,  inter- 
est naturally  attaches  to  Mr.  Bradley's  account, 
especially  in  view  of  his  well-known  theory  of  Reality 
and  Appearance. 

The  law  of  identity  he  has  stated  in  two  more  or 
less  distinct  ways;  we  shall  consider  first  the  more 
striking  view  of  the  matter.  As  applied  to  proposi- 
tions he  makes  it  to  mean  *'Once  true  always  true."^ 
This,  indeed,  will,  as  he  says,  "seem  a  false  statement." 
If  it  is  not  a  false  statement,  it  is  because  the  field  of 
truth  has  been  enormously  restricted  in  comparison 
with  ordinary  usage.  He  himself  points  out  that  a 
merely  singular  judgment,  such  as  "I  have  a  tooth- 
ache," could  not  possibly  be  true  on  this  theory.  One 
may  grant  that  we  are  occasionally  confronted  with  a 
vivid  and  overwhelming  conviction  of  the  validity  of 
such  a  proposition;  but  as  a  logical  proposition  it  fails 

^  Principles  of  Logic,  p.  133. 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    213 

by  default.  It  is  a  fragment  of  a  "this,"  torn  from  a 
context  in  separation  from  which  it  can  be  neither 
true  nor  real,  and,  while  inadequate  to  the  present, 
it  does  not  even  make  any  pretensions  of  transcending 
the  present  to  give  expression  to  a  general  truth. 
Such  a  statement  is  therefore,  in  Mr.  Bradley's  view, 
caught  between  the  upper  and  the  nether  millstones 
and  has  practically  no  value  at  all  as  truth. 

Ordinary  universals,  though  always  hypothetical,  do 
aim  to  assert  of  reality  a  quality  by  virtue  of  which, 
when  A  is  given,  B  always  follows.  While  this  is 
highly  abstract,  it  still  meets  much  more  successfully 
the  demands  of  the  law  of  identity  as  Mr.  Bradley 
understands  it,  and  so  is  more  nearly  true.  "The  real 
axiom  of  identity  is  this:  What  is  true  in  one  context 
is  true  in  another.  Or,  if  any  truth  is  stated  so  that  a 
change  in  events  will  make  it  false,  then  it  is  not  a 
genuine  truth  at  all."^  Obviously,  nothing  but  a 
highly  abstract  universal  could  begin  to  approach  this 
ideal  of  identity.  Incidentally,  Mr.  Bradley  mentions 
no  examples  of  this  genuine  sort  of  truth.  The  vicissi- 
tude of  daily  life,  taken  along  with  the  all-inclusive 
drift  of  cosmic  evolution,  renders  such  an  illustration 
extremely  diflScult  of  discovery  and  hazardous  of 
formulation. 

When  this  view  of  identity  is  taken  in  conjunction 
with  the  above-mentioned  view  of  singular  judgments 
on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  the  identity  of  indiscern- 
ibles  (which  he  accepts)  on  the  other,  the  result  is 
startling.  Singular  judgments,  as  we  saw,  are  all 
stamped  as  ultimately  false  because  of  their  mutila- 
tion in  being  isolated  from  their  context  or  conditions 

2  Bradley,  Principles  of  Logic,  p.  133. 


214  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

which,  however  much  they  are  abstracted  from,  are 
always  organically  relevant  to  the  judgment  in  ques- 
tion. But  the  law  of  identity,  in  the  form  of  "What 
is  true  in  one  context  is  true  in  another,"  deliberately 
ignores,  and  even  denies,  the  inevitable  influence  and 
relevancy  of  the  context,  which  to  do  was  acknowl- 
edged to  be  the  unpardonable  and  blasting  sin  of  all 
singular  judgments.  In  other  words,  the  ideal  of 
truth  is  absolute  identity  through  difference;  but  since 
no  element  of  meaning  or  reality  ever  is  absolutely 
independent  of  its  context,  the  ideal  of  absolute  truth 
is  a  logically  unrealizable  one.  This  is  not  pointed 
out  as  a  startling  refutation  of  Mr.  Bradley's  tlieory; 
rather  it  is  a  consequence  of  his  theory  which  he  him- 
self draws  in  the  "Appearance  and  Reality,"  where 
all  thought,  because  of  this  very  discrepancy,  is  set 
down  as  appearance.  The  present  purpose  has  been 
to  make  it  clear  that,  if  the  above  a  priori  formulation 
of  the  law  of  identity  be  adopted,  the  result  is  a  theory 
of  truth  that  condemns,  not  merely  all  existing  judg- 
ments, but  all  possible  ones,  to  the  graduated  limbo 
of  varying  degrees  of  falsehood. 

And  tliis  is  the  outcome  even  if  the  law  as  stated 
be  accepted  at  its  face  value.  But  it  is  by  no  means 
apparent  that  it  should  be  so  accepted  as  a  law  of 
thought.  A  law  of  thought  might  be  expected  to 
reveal  some  distinguishing  mode  of  the  mind's  ac- 
tivity; the  formula  in  question  sets  up  an  ideal  of 
validity  to  be  sought  for  in  the  finished  product  of 
the  thought  process.  So,  even  apart  from  the  intrinsic 
unattainability  of  this  ideal,  it  is  doubtful  that,  if  it 
did  exhaust  the  law  of  identity,  it  could  be  regarded 
as  an  elemental  law  of  thought  at  all.    If  anything  like 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    215 

a  law,  it  is  a  law  of  truth — of  a  type  of  relation  be- 
tween the  thinking  subject  and  the  object  thought 
about.  And  if,  in  the  above  form,  it  were  offered  as  a 
law  of  thought,  it  would  possess  the  doubtful  virtue 
of  defining  the  thought  activity  in  tenns  of  one  of  its 
own  derivatives,  namely,  truth.  But  perhaps  these 
are  minor  matters.  The  essential  point  in  all  this  is 
that  in  this  formulation  of  the  principle  of  identity  we 
have,  not  a  fundamental  necessity  nor  an  elemental 
modus  operandi  of  the  thought  process  as  such;  and 
whatever  it  be,  other  than  that,  need  not  concern  us 
here. 

In  his  chapter  on  "The  Two  Conditions  of  Infer- 
ence" Mr.  Bradley  gives  us  a  slightly  different  view 
of  the  law  that  does  at  the  start  locate  it  quite  specifi- 
cally in  the  thought  process.  If,  from  "M  is  P"  and 
**S  is  M,"  we  are  validly  to  conclude  that  *'S  is  P," 
"M"  must  be  identical,  not  merely  similar,  in  the  two 
premises.  "The  axiom  may  be  monstrous  or  again  it 
may  be  true,  but  at  least  one  thing  is  beyond  all 
doubt,  that  it  is  the  indispensable  basis  of  reasoning. 
It  may  be  false  metaphysically,  but  there  is  no  single 
inference  you  possibly  can  make  but  assumes  its 
validity  at  every  step."^  But  with  this  too  there  must 
be  coupled  the  familiar  proviso  that  "an  identity  that 
is  not  a  synthesis  of  differences  is  plainly  inert  and 
utterly  useless."^  Which  is  to  say  that,  in  the  world 
of  thought,  as  in  the  proper  realm  of  any  other  ap- 
pearance, we  are  aware  of  converging  lines  that  point 
into  a  realm  of  perfection  where  the  appearance  itself 
would  cease  entirely  to  exist. 

'  Principles  of  Logic,  p.  264. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  263. 


216  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

But  that  is  not  the  chief  difficulty  here.  The  main 
question  still  is  the  degree  to  which  this  presupposi- 
tion of  all  inference  is  a  law  of  thought.  Is  it  neces- 
sary, in  other  words,  that  "M"  be  identical  as  "M" — 
as  the  middle  term  in  the  syllogism — or  is  the  primary 
necessity  merely  that  it  shall  refer  to  an  identical  en- 
tity in  the  world?  It  is  certainly  true  that  if  we  knew 
on  good  authority  that,  while  the  concept  "M"  had 
remained  identical,  the  entity  designated  by  it  had 
undergone  material  change,  the  most  regular  and 
formally  faultless  inference  would  be  immediately  re- 
pudiated. If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  concept  "M'* 
changed  in  the  mind  of  the  reasoner,  in  any  other 
respect  than  that  which  had  led  to  the  judgments 
"M  is  P"  and  "S  is  M,"  and  if  at  the  same  time  it 
were  discovered  that  the  objects  referred  to  were  un- 
altered— at  least  in  the  essential  relation  of  "M"  to 
"S"  and  "P" — the  validity  of  the  inference  would  be 
unharmed.  That,  in  order  to  reason  certain  ways 
about  objects,  certain  assumptions  must  be  made 
about  them,  is  surely  no  more  concerned  with  the 
reasoning  than  with  the  objects  reasoned  about.  If 
you  are  going  to  conclude,  from  *'M  is  P"  and  "S  is 
M,"  that  "S  is  P,"  you  must  assume  that  the  terms 
involved  remain  essentially  identical.  If  you  are  going 
to  reason  from  a  nest  of  eggs  to  a  flock  of  birds,  you 
must  assume  that  the  entities  involved  are  living 
things.  Nobody  would  regard  the  latter  as  a  law  of 
thought;  it  is  an  empirical  generalization  from  objec- 
tive facts;  but  just  on  that  account  it  imposes  ines- 
capable restrictions  and  responsibilities  on  the  thought 
that  deals  with  them.  Down  to  this  point  no  reason 
has  been   shown   why   the  other  law   should  not  be 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    217 

understood  in  a  similar  way  and  regarded  as  having  a 
similar — though  broader — empirical  origin  and  signifi- 
cance. 

Thought  we  understand  to  be  a  way  of  dealing  with 
reality,  and  for  its  operation  a  certain  dependableness 
seems  to  be  necessary  in  the  reality  dealt  with.  If  the 
world  were  merely  an  enormously  exaggerated  kaleido- 
scope, thought  would  doubtless  fail  of  fruitful  results. 
It  requires  a  moderate  degree  of  identity,  just  as  a 
pair  of  ice  tongs  requires  a  relative  persistence  of 
rigidity  and  weight  in  the  ice.  If  ice  were  in  the  habit 
of  turning  without  warning  into  electric  charges  or 
volcanic  explosions,  ice  tongs  would  certainly  lose 
their  prehensile  utility.  But  too  much  identity  would 
be  just  as  fatal.  If  the  cake  of  ice  did  not  change  at 
all,  not  only  would  there  never  have  been  the  present 
use  for  ice  tongs,  but  their  mechanical  utility  would 
have  been  in  principle  impossible.  The  bite  of  the 
tongs  depends  upon  two  things:  the  relative  persist- 
ence of  the  ice  as  ice,  and  a  sufficient  capacity  for 
change  to  let  the  tongs  sink  in.  In  the  same  way, 
while  thinking  requires  a  field  of  reference  of  a  fair 
degree  of  stability,  it  also  might  have  too  much  iden- 
tity! If  it  became  apparent,  for  instance,  that  the 
objective  world  had  been  stricken  into  total  rigidity 
by  a  kind  of  cosmic  paralysis,  or  if  all  existing  con- 
cepts were  suddenly  congealed  into  standardized 
thoughts  that  would  never  change  again,  certainly  all 
the  occasion  and  character  of  thought  would  be  gone. 
Just  as  the  process  of  carving  marble  consists  partly 
in  a  continuous  repair  of  tools,  so  the  action  of  intel- 
ligence on  its  world  consists  always  in  a  relative  remak- 
ing of  itself  in  addition  to  its  objective  achievements. 


218  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

All  such  effective  interaction  would  be  destroyed  if  the 
law  of  identity  were  regarded  as  an  a  priori  necessity 
and  applied  with  legalistic  severity  to  concepts  and  to 
the  objects  of  their  reference. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  law  be  interpreted  in  the 
relative  and  empirical  way  just  outlined,  its  service- 
ability as  a  major  premise  for  the  epistemological  argu- 
ment would,  of  course,  disappear,  since  the  force  of 
that  argument  depends  upon  that  law's  being  of  itself 
and  in  its  first  intention  a  fact  of  the  mind.  Only  as  a 
mental  law  in  the  latter  sense  could  it  be  held  to  put 
upon  the  very  content  of  knowledge  the  indelible 
stamp  and  superscription  of  the  mind,  and  to  require 
in  consequence  a  mental  structure  of  reality  on  pain 
of  sacrificing  the  validity  of  knowledge  were  reality 
otherwise. 

The  law  of  noncontradiction  is  ordinarily  stated  in 
one  of  two  ways:  (a)  Logically  contradictory  predi- 
cates may  not  validly  be  asserted  of  the  same  subject; 
or  (b)  two  contradictory  judgments  cannot  both  be 
true.  These,  however,  amount  to  the  same  thing, 
since  two  judgments  could  not  contradict  unless  they 
both  referred  ultimately  to  the  same  entity  or  subject. 
We  may  not,  then,  ascribe  logically  inconsistent  predi- 
cates to  the  same  subject  without  subverting  the 
whole  knowing  process.  This,  in  other  words,  is  a 
law  of  thought  to  which  the  objective  world,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  to  be  accepted  as  knowable,  must  conform. 
And  with  this  there  begins  a  familiar  dialectic. 

Obviously,  the  crux  of  the  whole  matter  is  the  dis- 
covery and  ordering  of  the  incompatible  predicates. 
Simple  cues  from  the  structure  of  words  will  not  help 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    219 

us.  Dr.  E.  E.  Southard  once  noticed  with  surprise  that 
to  "ravel"  a  knitted  object,  and  to  "unravel"  it,  meant 
precisely  the  same  thing.  The  housemaid  "dusts"  the 
furniture;  to  "undust"  it  would  be  an  identical  per- 
formance. "Valuable"  and  "invaluable"  are  not  con- 
tradictories nor  even  opposites.  If  there  be  logical 
marks  of  consistency  and  inconsistency,  they,  at  any 
rate,  are  not  reflected  in  any  dependable  way  in  the 
form  of  words. 

Unquestionably,  there  are  many  pairs  of  words  that 
are  divergent  and  opposite,  not  in  mere  form  but  in 
meaning.  This  fact  is  so  conspicuous  that  Heraclitus 
could  think  of  these  dichotomies  as  fundamental  to 
the  very  nature  of  being  itself.  Aristotle  did  much 
the  same  thing,  at  least  in  the  field  of  ethics.  But  the 
trouble  is  these  opposites  do  not  stay  put.  Whether 
any  two  shall  be  regarded  as  really  incompatible  and 
as  contradictory  to  each  other  is  always  an  empirical 
matter  and  depends  upon  the  thing  of  which  they  are 
asserted  and  the  sense  in  which  they  are  regarded  as 
modifying  or  qualifying  it.  Can  the  same  thing  be 
both  round  and  square  .^^  A  plain  area  cannot  be,  but 
a  cylinder  can  if  it  be  looked  at  from  two  certain 
points  of  view.  "Dead"  and  "alive"  are  mutually 
exclusive  enough  in  human  society,  but  as  applied  to 
a  dry  seed  the  case  is  not  so  clear.  The  argument  gen- 
erally ends  with,  "Of  course,  in  a  certain  sense,  one 
may  say — "  etc.,  and  that  is  just  the  point.  Professor 
James  once  remarked  that  there  was  a  sense  in  which 
not  even  the  arithmetical  laws  of  addition  and  multi- 
plication would  hold — for  drops  of  quicksilver,  for  in- 
stance, or  for  rabbits!  Can  a  thing  be  both  large  and 
small  .f*    It  is  an  ancient  paradox  that  a  tall  Esquimo 


220  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

may  be  a  short  man.  Are  not  straight  and  curved 
lines  absolute  opposites?  It  is  perfectly  allowable  in 
mathematics  to  regard  a  straight  line  as  a  curve — as 
a  circle,  for  instance,  of  infinite  radius.^  Can  the  same 
person  be  both  happy  and  unhappy?  In  the  same  sense 
and  for  the  same  identical  causes,  perhaps  not.  But  ask 
a  mother  who  wears  a  golden  star  whether  she  was  happy 
or  unhappy  on  Victory  Day.  She  will  probably  answer 
that  she  was  both !  Are  "like"and  "unlike"  logically  con- 
tradictory terms. f^  It  is  a  familiar  paradox  that  no  two 
entities  could  possibly  be  compared  which  were  not  in 
some  degree  both  like  and  unlike.  It  would  probably 
be  impossible  to  mention  any  two  so-called  opposite 
terms  about  which  some  such  qualifications  would  not 
have  to  be  recognized. 

The  more  such  points  are  raised,  the  more  evident  it 
becomes  that  without  specific  objectification  in  some- 
thing actual  and  without  definition  of  the  predicates 
with  reference  to  both  the  substantive  and  the  con- 
text in  which  the  terms  are  applied,  these  questions 
cannot  be  answered.  When  taken  in  complete  abstrac- 
tion from  empirical  particulars  attributes  lose  the  pur- 
chase that  is  necessary  to  offset  or  displace  each  other. 
The  two  predicates  do  not,  in  these  circumstances, 
come  to  quarrel,  because  they  have  nothing  to  quarrel 
about  or  fight  over.  The  only  opposites  that  are  inher- 
ently— in  and  of  themselves — contradictory  are  the 
completely  formal  pairs  "A"  and  "non-A,"  in  which 


5  It  is  interesting  that  between  straight  and  curved  there  may  also 
be  qualitatively  intermediate  terms.  Consider  (a)  a  line  straight  with 
reference  to  the  three  axes  of  our  space  but  curved  with  reference  to  a 
coordinate  axis  in  the  fourth  dimension;  or  (6)  a  line  straight  with 
regard  to  all  given  axes  of  space,  but  drawn  in  a  space  which  is  itself 
curved,  etc. 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    221 

*'non-A"  designates  no  assignable  content  of  reality 
in  this  world  or  the  next,  but  stands  only  for  a  denial 
which,  as  a  psychological  act,  is  the  opposite  of  affir- 
mation. In  other  words,  the  only  case  in  which  two 
predicates  may  be  seen  in  an  a-priori  and  purely 
logical  sense  to  be  contradictory  is  where  there  are 
really  no  two  predicates  at  all,  but  only  one  which 
submits  to  the  mental  alternative  of  assertion  or 
denial.  All  other  cases  are  either  obviously  empirical 
— or  beg  the  question. 

Perhaps  it  goes  without  saying  too  that  logic,  even 
the  logic  of  contradiction,  must  adjust  itself  somehow 
to  the  facts  of  individual  or  differential  psychology. 
So  long  as  there  was  "The  Human  Mind"  which  an 
organism  either  did  or  did  not  possess,  so  long  as 
reason  was  a  homogeneous  principle  like  the  Logos, 
the  law  of  contradiction  could  be  a  simple,  ultimate, 
and  equally  homogeneous  principle  of  the  structure  of 
the  mind.  But  the  case  is  different  when  it  is  con- 
ceded that  probably  no  two  minds  are  alike  either  in 
content  or  in  structure,  when  no  two  authorities  can 
agree  as  to  what  an  absolutely  normal  mind  would  be, 
and  when  it  is  presumptuous  for  anyone  to  claim  that 
such  a  sample  exists  in  real  life  at  all.  When,  for 
example,  one  says  that  an  "A-XY"  is  a  contradiction 
in  terms,  that  must  be  taken  to  mean:  "Granting  that 
consciousness  as  such  has  no  immediate  insight  into 
the  compatibility  of  real  predicates,  I  am  still  con- 
vinced that,  since  facts  must  strike  your  mind  approxi- 
mately as  they  do  mine,  you,  if  you  had  before  you 
the  evidence  that  I  can  present,  would  be  unable  to 
believe  in  the  existence  of  an  *A'  that  was  both  *X' 
and  'Y.'"    And  not  only  does  this  raise  Mill's  ques- 


222  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

tion  as  to  whether  contradiction  is  a  fact  of  content 
or  attitude,  but  one  is  also  bound  to  acknowledge  that 
however  much  evidence  may  seem  to  warrant  the  re- 
garding of  these  ideas  as  incompatible,  it  is  always 
abstractly  possible  for  a  mass  of  new  evidence  to  come 
to  light  that  would  quite  harmonize  them.  Even 
then,  one  would  be  absolutely  certain  that  another 
mind  would  draw  the  same  conclusion  only  if  it  were 
antecedently  known  that  the  subjective  dispositions 
and  objective  content  of  the  other  mind  were  identical 
with  one's  own.  While,  in  other  words,  it  might  be 
possible  to  state  a  law  of  contradiction  in  abstraction 
from  personal  variations,  it  would  be  entirely  impos- 
sible to  apply  it,  to  depend  upon  it  with  confidence, 
without  taking  them  into  account. 

Mr.  Bradley's  treatment  of  the  law  of  noncontra- 
diction comes  as  a  surprise  after  his  highly  abstract 
interpretation  of  the  law  of  identity.  Having  stated 
the  latter  as  an  ideal  of  logical  immutability  which  few 
judgments  aspire  to  and  none  achieve  (and  which  is 
therefore  never,  as  such,  exemplified  in  experience), 
the  principle  of  noncontradiction  is  declared  to  be 
purely  an  empirical  matter.  "There  is  no  logical 
principle  which  will  tell  us  what  qualities  are  really 
disparate."^  "In  the  nature  of  things  (this  is  what  it 
all  comes  to)  there  are  certain  elements  which  either 
cannot  be  conjoined  at  all,  or  cannot  be  conjoined  in 
some  special  way;  and  the  nature  of  things  must  be 
respected  by  logic. "^  This  statement  of  the  thoroughly 
empirical  and  objective  character  of  the  relation  of 
logical  contradictoriness  is  especially  valuable  as  com- 

*  Principles  of  Logic,  p.  136. 
7  Ibid.,  p.  137. 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    223 

ing  from  the  present  monarch  of  philosophical  abso- 
lutism. 

Once  more,  at  the  risk  of  irrelevance,  we  may  notice 
the  peculiar  relation  of  this  account  to  Mr.  Bradley's 
other  views.  "If  we  wish  to  show  that  this  axiom  is 
merely  the  other  side  of  the  Law  of  Identity,  we  may 
state  it  thus,  'Truth  is  unchangeable,  and,  as  dis- 
parate assertions  alter  one  another,  they  cannot  be 
true.'"^  But,  as  he  has  developed  them,  the  two 
halves  of  this  statement  are  not  coordinate  either  in 
quality  or  in  origin.  The  first  is  an  ideal  set  up  quite 
antecedent  to  and  independent  of  the  deliverances  of 
experience;  the  noncontradiction  half  of  it  rests  en- 
tirely upon  the  relationships  found  in  experience.  In 
other  words,  the  law  of  identity  involves  no  need  of 
reading  experience  content-wise ;  the  second  is  mean- 
ingless without  such  reading.  Certainly,  to  say  that 
two  contradictory  assertions  cannot  both  be  true  does 
seem,  if  taken  by  itself,  to  be  as  a  priori  as  the  Brad- 
ley an  concept  of  identity.  The  disillusionment  comes 
when  it  is  discovered  that,  apart  from  the  profound 
impossibility  of  the  simultaneous  assertion  and  denial 
of  an  identical  predicate,  the  only  conceivable  way  of 
determining  whether  two  assertions  are  contradictory 
is  to  find  out  beforehand  whether  they  can  both  be 
true!  No  such  induction  as  that  could  be  said  to  be 
logically  antecedent  to  the  law  of  identity  as  he  stated 
it.  Accepting,  then,  his  statement  of  the  principle  of 
noncontradiction,  it  is  sufficient  to  have  pointed  out 
that  it  is  anything  but  the  simple  reverse  of  his  lofty 
formulation  of  the  principle  of  identity. 

In  view  of  Mr.  Bradley's  well-known  Criterion  of 

^  Principles  of  Logic,  p.  137. 


224  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Reality,  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  distinguishes  two 
kinds  of  logical  disparity^ — the  concrete  disparity  which 
does,  and  the  dialectical  disparity  which  does  not, 
cancel  the  possibility  of  the  thing  to  which  the  oppos- 
ing predicates  are  attributed.  If  this  distinction  de- 
pended upon  the  mere  assertion  that  one  is  taken 
from  the  realm  of  daily  life  and  the  other  from  the 
charmed  field  of  metaphysics  where  ordinary  laws 
break  down  (and  no  remark  is  better  calculated  to 
lead  to  disorderly  conduct  in  a  philosophical  discus- 
sion)— if  that  alone  were  the  distinction,  the  dialectical 
method  would,  indeed,  be  saved  at  the  expense  of  its 
self-respect.  But  our  attention  is  called  to  the  fact 
that,  while  concretely  there  are  opposites  that  never 
are  conjoined  and  apparently  cannot  be  (and  to  re- 
spect which  is  the  principle  of  noncontradiction  itself), 
the  dialectical  method  in  metaphysics  builds  upon 
disparates  that  not  only  may  be,  but  always  are,  con- 
joined in  the  same  reality.^  In  the  one  case  you  may 
choose  between  A  and  B,  but  never  may  have  both. 
In  the  other  case  you  not  only  must  acknowledge 
both  A  and  B  while  recognizing  their  disparity,  but 
you  find  upon  reflection  that  the  A  taken  alone  re- 
solves into  Ai  and  B„  the  Ai  into  A^  and  B,,  and  so  on 
infinitely.  For  instance,  when  one  tries  to  under- 
stand the  objective  reality  of  terms  and  relations,  the 
terms  themselves  turn  out  to  be  made  up  of  terms  in 
relation,  and  the  relations  also  to  be  nests  of  related 
terms.  Such  a  case  differs  from  ordinary  logical  oppo- 
sition in  that  the  disparate  terms  not  only  oppose  but 
also  imply  each  other. 
Our  concern  here  is  not,  of  course,  with  the  reality 

^  Principles  of  Logic,  pp.  137-142. 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    225 

of  the  dialectical  contradictions  nor  with  the  question 
as  to  whether  they  finally  are  reconciled  with  the  law 
of  noncontradiction.  We  are  dealing  with  the  con- 
crete opposites  which,  under  that  second  law,  do 
exclude  each  other.  And  since  the  distinction  just 
referred  to  does  involve  a  fundamental  difference  in 
the  two  types  of  disparity,  the  empirical  concreteness 
of  the  ordinary  rule  of  noncontradiction  may  be  taken 
as  adequately  protected  in  theory.  And  that  is  the 
sole  apology  for  mentioning  the  subject.  It  would  at 
least  be  plausible  to  claim  that  Mr.  Bradley's  con- 
struction of  dialectical  contradictories  in  the  Princi- 
'ples  of  Logic,  and  his  solution  of  their  mystery  by  a 
kind  of  transcendental  empiricism,  unquestionably 
does  take  at  least  one  of  the  props  from  the  support  of 
the  Absolute.  But  that  point  would  be  clearly  irrele- 
vant. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  historical  discussions  of 
the  question  of  contradiction  was  the  controversy  on 
this  subject  between  Herbert  Spencer  and  John  Stuart 
Mill.  The  former  had  set  it  down  that  the  most  ulti- 
mate proof  of  the  truth  of  a  proposition  was  the  incon- 
ceivability of  its  opposite.  To  which  Mill  replied  that, 
since  most  of  the  fundamental  scientific  doctrines  of 
modern  times  had  at  some  time  or  other  in  the  past 
seemed  preposterous  and  inconceivable,  it  was  fair  to 
suppose  that  our  present  inconceivables  might  some 
day  similarly  be  regarded  as  true.  Among  such  in- 
conceivables Spencer  had  explicitly  mentioned  the 
inconceivableness  of  the  mvalidity  of  the  syllogism  or 
(what  comes  to  the  same  thing)  of  the  simultaneous 
validity  of  contradictory  statements.  In  insisting  that 
inconceivableness  does  not  prove  a  statement  false, 


226  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Mill  was  taking  the  same  position  that  he  had  taken 
as  against  Whewell  and  Sir  William  Hamilton;  and 
this  position  roughly  was  as  follows: 

1.  Axioms  are  generalizations  from  experience.  It 
is  because  we  have  had  every  reason  for  believing  the 
axiom  that  the  denial  of  it  seems  inconceivable  (that 
is,  incredible)  to  us.  But  "I  maintain,'*  he  says,  "that 
uniformity  of  past  experience  is  very  far  from  being 
universally  a  criterion  of  truth.  But,  secondly,  incon- 
ceivableness  is  still  farther  from  being  a  test,  even  of 
that  test."io 

2.  When  he  speaks  of  contradictories,  he  refers  to 
the  propositions  regularly  so  regarded  in  formal  logic. 
"An  affirmative  assertion  and  its  negative  are  not  two 
independent  assertions,  connected  with  each  other  only 
as  mutually  incompatible.  The  negative  proposition  as- 
serts nothing  but  the  falsity  of  the  affirmative."  That 
these  cannot  both  be  true  he  considers  to  be,  "like 
other  axioms,  one  of  our  first  and  most  familiar  gen- 
eralizations from  experience.  The  original  foundation 
of  it  I  take  to  be,  that  belief  and  disbelief  are  two 
different  mental  states,  excluding  one  another."" 

These  last  two  paragraphs,  with  the  exception  of 
the  last  sentence  in  each,  are  entirely  in  harmony  with 
all  the  foregoing.  Even  logical  laws  turn  out  to  be 
simply  our  "most  familiar  generalizations  from  expe- 
rience." It  then  becomes  of  interest  to  find  out  what 
he  regards  as,  in  the  last  analysis,  the  present  status — 
perhaps  one  should  say  locus — of  these  laws,  and  what 
their  sanction. 

We  have  seen  throughout  that  contradiction  may 

'«  Mill's  Logic,  Eight  Edition,  book  ii,  chapter  vii,  p.  2. 
"  Book  ii,  chapter  vii,  p.  5. 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    227 

be  regarded  in  two  ways — as  the  objective  existence 
of  incompatible  predicates,  or  the  formal  sort  of  con- 
tradiction as  found  in  the  assertion  and  denial  of  the 
same  predicate.  These  two  meanings  Mill  very  care- 
fully distinguishes.  But  it  is  easier  to  make  a  distinc- 
tion than  to  accord  it  scrupulous  observance.  When, 
for  instance,  it  is  said  that  the  principle  of  noncontra- 
diction is  simply  a  very  familiar  generalization  from 
experience,  one  gets  the  impression  that  it  is  the  rela- 
tion of  objective  incompatibles  that  is  in  question. 
This  is  even  more  evidently  the  case  in  a  remark  in 
the  Examination  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  Philosophy. 
The  latter  had  insisted  upon  applying  the  three  laws 
rigorously  to  his  field  of  inscrutable  noumena.  To 
which  Mill  replies:  "Now,  in  respect  to  phenomenal 
attributes,  no  one  denies  the  three  'Fundamental 
Laws'  to  be  universally  true.  Since,  then,  they  are 
laws  of  all  phenomena,  and  since  existence  has  to  us 
no  meaning  but  one  which  has  relation  to  phenomena, 
we  are  quite  safe  in  looking  upon  them  as  laws  of 
existence.  This  is  sufficient  for  those  who  hold  the 
doctrine  of  the  relativity  of  human  knowledge"  (p. 
418).  It  is  hard  to  see  how  contradiction  here  could 
possibly  be  other  than  the  objective  relationship 
known  as  incompatibility.  For,  surely,  the  mental 
impossibility  of  believing  both  an  assertion  and  its 
denial  is  not  a  fact  to  be  discovered  among  objective 
phenomena  as  such.  Define  contradiction  as  Mr. 
Bradley  did,  and  it  becomes  at  once  a  law  standing 
for  a  type  of  relationship  among  phenomena.  But 
define  it  as  Mill  does,  in  the  Aristotelian  way,  and 
it  could  at  best  be  a  "generalization  from  experi- 
ence" only  in  the  psychological  sense  that  assertion 


228  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  denial  of  the  same  thing  defy  simultaneous 
belief. 

If,  in  other  words,  contradietoriness  be  taken  as 
merely  affirmation  and  denial  of  the  same  thing 
("mathematician"  and  "moralist,"  he  says,  are  dif- 
ferent but  not  contradictory;  "man"  and  "horse"  as 
applied  to  the  same  object  are  contradictory,  "the  one 
affirming  and  the  other  denying  the  extra  number  of 
legs"),  what  does  it  mean  to  say  that  they  are  "uni- 
versally true  of  all  phenomena"?  Are  the  assertions 
and  denials  phenomena? — or  factors  in  phenomena? 
If  they  are  merely  of  phenomena,  then  phenomena  are 
objective  to  them,  and  the  law  can  be  true  of  phe- 
nomena only  if  we  translate  belief  and  disbelief  into 
existence  and  nonexistence.  But  that  existence  and 
nonexistence  are  not  simple  alternatives  is  evident 
from  a  whole  cloud  of  witnesses.  Think  of  the  doc- 
trine of  degrees  of  reality  as  one  finds  it  in  Bradley, 
Taylor,  Bosanquet,  etc.;  or  of  phenomenal  and  nou- 
menal  reality,  in  Kant  or  the  views  of  Mill  himself; 
or  of  the  Neo-Realist  distinction  of  existence,  sub- 
sistence, etc.  Mill  would  certainly  not  risk  that 
translation.  Yet  without  it  one  must  assume  either 
that  credibility  and  incredibility  are  themselves  phe- 
nomena, or  that  the  laws  in  question  belong  to  the 
mind  and  so  are  antecedent  to,  and  not  generalizations 
from,  experience. 

If  the  law  of  noncontradiction  is  to  be  taken  in  its 
Aristotelian  sense,  as  simply  forbidding  the  simul- 
taneous prediction  of  "A"  and  "non-A,"  that  law  can 
be  made  a  generalization  from  experience  only  by 
adopting  the  position  of  what  Mill  calls  "the  extreme 
nominalists,"  that  we  have  simply  found  it  linguisti- 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    229 

cally  possible  to  express  the  same  thought  in  two 
ways — by  direct  assertion,  or  by  denial  of  its  contra- 
dictory. But  he  does  not  care  for  that  view  of  the 
matter.  Having  recognized  the  laws  as  simply  gen- 
eralizations from  experience,  he  is  still  haunted  by  the 
feeling  that  in  some  way  they  lie  deeper  in  the  mind 
than  mere  inductions  would.  "Whether  the  three  so- 
called  Fundamental  Laws  are  laws  of  our  thought  by 
the  native  structure  of  the  mind,  or  merely  because 
we  perceive  them  to  be  universally  true  of  observed 
phenomena,  I  will  not  positively  decide;  but  they  are 
laws  of  our  thoughts  now  and  invincibly  so."^^  And 
the  word  "invincibly"  was  put  there  in  deadly  earnest. 
In  response  to  Sir  Wm.  Hamilton's  observation  that 
they  are  not  necessities  of  the  thinking  act  but  instruc- 
tions for  right  thinking.  Mill  replies:  "It  would  not 
have  been  claiming  too  much  for  these  three  laws  to 
have  regarded  them  as  laws  in  the  more  peremptory 
sense.  Our  author  could  hardly  have  meant  that  we 
are  able  to  disbelieve  that  a  thing  is  itself,  or  to  be- 
lieve that  a  thing  is,  and  at  the  same  time  that  it  is 
not."  When  one  sees  a  contradiction  "it  is  totally 
impossible  for  him  to  believe  it."^^ 

It  is  evident  in  all  this  that  the  contradiction  he 
discusses  is  by  no  means  simply  the  content  of  an 
empirical  generalization  regarding  incompatibles.  It 
is  the  Aristotelian  sort  of  thing  instead.  And  since 
the  latter  confessedly  deals  only  with  the  formal  char- 
acter of  propositions  as  assertions  and  denials,  it  is 
obvious  that  the  law  of  noncontradiction  must  either 
be  assumed  as  ultimate  or  grounded  upon  other  more 

1*  Examination  of  Sir  Wm.  Hamilton's  Philosophy,  p.  418. 
"  Ibid.,  p.  407. 


230  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

fundamental  laws  of  the  mind  itself.  It  was  to  provide 
such  a  sanction  that  Spencer  offered  his  criterion  of 
conceivability.  It  is  inconceivable  that  two  contra- 
dictories should  both  be  true;  therefore  the  acceptance 
of  the  law  of  noncontradiction  is  a  categorical  neces- 
sity of  the  mind. 

That,  of  course,  depends  upon  the  meaning  of  con- 
ceivable and  inconceivable.  The  Abelian  functions, 
for  instance,  are  wholly  "inconceivable"  to  me,  not 
because  I  can  detect  any  logical  hiati  in  their  devel- 
opment, but  simply  as  snow  is  inconceivable  to  a 
Congo  savage.  Such  inconceivability  is  certainly  not 
in  question.  Neither  could  it  be  the  simple  psycho- 
logical impossibility  of  holding  the  opposed  ideas  be- 
fore the  mind.  In  other  words,  it  is  not,  so  far  as  the 
mind  is  concerned,  a  mere  passive  noncoexistability. 
However  inconceivable  it  may  be  that  one  plus  one 
equals  three  (neglecting  Professor  James'  rabbits),  it 
is  not  at  all  impossible  to  hold  the  whole  offending 
assertion  before  the  mind  and  understand  perfectly 
what  it  means.  We  not  only  do  conceive — conceptually 
formulate — what  in  practice  we  decline  as  "incon- 
ceivable," but  we  must  conceive  and  understand  it  in 
order  to  make  our  repudiation  of  it  intellectually 
respectable.  A  man  who  declared  inconceivable  a 
proposition  he  did  not  clearly  understand  would  be 
pretty  generally  discredited.  Spencer,  certainly,  would 
despise  an  opponent  who  declared  his  views  incon- 
ceivable without  first  showing  that  he  understood,  that 
is,  had  correctly  conceived  them. 

All  of  which  confirms  the  suspicion  that  "inconceiv- 
able" in  its  literal  psychological  sense  is  not  exactly 
what  is  meant.    It  is  not  sheer  obstruction  of  cognitive 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    231 

process — a  stalling  of  the  machine.  One  has  to  do,  not 
with  a  totally  baffling  and  incomprehensible  mental 
deadlock,  but  with  the  impossibility  of  believing  con- 
tradictory statements  together.  Mill  makes  it  per- 
fectly plain  that  it  was  this  meaning  he  had  in  mind 
in  his  well-known  statement  that  inconceivability  is 
no  proof  of  impossibility.  And  this  psychological  fact, 
of  the  incompatibility  of  belief  and  disbelief  in  the 
same  thing,  is  the  ultimate  ground  he  assigns  to  the 
formal  law  of  noncontradiction  in  the  traditional  sense. 
"The  original  foundation  of  it  I  take  to  be  that  belief 
and  disbelief  are  two  different  mental  states,  excluding 
one  another.  "^^ 

That  belief  and  disbelief  are  opposite  and  quite  in- 
compatible in  reference  to  the  same  thing  is  indis- 
putable. But  it  is  not  so  plain  in  what  sense  this  is 
any  reply  to  the  "extreme  nominalists."  Surely,  the 
order  of  events  is  not  that  we  contemplate  "S  is  P" 
and  "S  is  not  P,"  find  that  the  mind  balks  at  believing 
both,  and  because  of  this  difficulty  regard  them  as 
contradictory.  Rather  it  is  because  we  know  them 
to  be  contradictory  that  we  are  unable  to  believe  them 
both.  And  the  formal  contradictoriness  is  recognized 
because  we  know  enough  about  language  to  know  that 
the  second  proposition  is  simply  the  cancellation  of 
the  first,  and  that  in  meaning  it  is  an  extension  to 
infinity  of  the  relationship  of  real  mutual  incompati- 
bility that  we  find  in  objective  experience.  In  that 
certainly  is  the  fundamental  truth  in  Mill's  original 
insight  that  the  law  of  noncontradiction,  like  any 
other  axiom,  is  in  the  last  analysis  a  generalization 
from  experience  and  not  an  a  priori  determinant  of  it. 

"  Logic — Eighth  Edition,  book  ii,  chapter  vii,  p.  5. 


232  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

It  remains  in  this  connection  to  deal  with  one  or 
two  questions  that  might  naturally  present  themselves. 
In  the  first  place,  if  even  the  fundamental  laws  of 
formal  logic  are  empirical  formulae,  one  might  be  led 
to  ask:  "Has  the  mind,  then,  no  laws  of  its  own?  No 
matter  what  your  definition  of  it,  it  is  certainly  some- 
thing and  so  must  have  a  character  of  its  own."  To 
this  there  is  the  patent  answer  that,  indeed,  the  whole 
science  of  psychology  is  devoted  to  a  statement  of 
that  character.  All  that  has  been  denied  in  the  fore- 
going is  that  the  mind  furnishes  any  of  the  ground  of 
validity  of  judgments — except,  of  course,  when  the 
mind  is  itself  the  subject  matter  of  those  judgments. 
The  validity  of  thought  must  finally  be  grounded  in 
the  character  of  the  things  thought  about;  and  when 
the  intended  object  of  a  judgment  is  some  fact  or 
relationship  of  the  objective  order  it  would  be  very 
droll  indeed  were  some  inherent  bias  of  the  mind 
itseK  to  lay  down  conditions  of  what  should  be 
acknowledged  true.  What  is  denied  is  not  that  the 
mind  has  a  nature  of  its  own  but  that  it  has  a  logical 
authority  of  a-priori  censorship.  In  a  similar  way  the 
structure  and  "laws"  of  the  physiological  apparatus 
determine  what  a  man's  handwriting  shall  be  like,  but 
not  the  truth  of  what  he  writes. 

Yet  another  point  demands  attention.  The  claim 
that  the  laws  of  identity  and  noncontradiction  refer 
primarily  to  types  of  relationship  in  the  content  of 
knowledge  must  not  be  identified  with  the  interpreta- 
tion put  upon  those  laws  by  some  of  the  neo-realists, 
in  particular  by  Mr.  Holt.  Logical  facts,  from  his 
point  of  view,  are  all  objective  entities  of  some  kind 
or  other,  and  that  leads  him  to  regard  logical  opposi- 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    233 

tion  as  identical  with  the  strain  and  tug  and  resistance 
of  objective  things  in  interaction.  "The  objective 
world  does  contain  contradictions." ^^  "All  collisions 
between  bodies,  all  interference  between  energies,  all 
processes  of  warming  and  cooling,  of  electrically 
charging  and  discharging,  of  starting  and  stopping,  of 
combining  and  separatmg,  are  processes  of  which  one 
undoes  the  other. "^^ 

There  is  certainly  physical  opposition  enough  in  the 
world,  counteraction  as  well  as  contradiction,  and  the 
physical  opposition  must  be  allowed  for  in  our  think- 
ing. The  only  question  is  whether  there  does  not 
exist  also,  and  as  a  distinct  type,  the  kind  of  opposi- 
tion that  Mr.  Bradley  calls  disparity.  To  be  specific: 
When  a  shell  leaves  a  high-angled  gun,  it  is  perfectly 
allowable  for  Mr.  Holt  to  say,  if  he  chooses,  that  the 
force  of  gravity  "contradicts"  the  upward  inertia  of 
the  moving  shell.  The  trouble  is,  however,  that  what 
he  gives  us  is  not  an  illustration  or  more  extended 
application  of  the  old  term,  but  a  completely  altered 
meaning  of  it.  The  two  statements  (a)  that  the  mo- 
mentum of  the  explosion  urges  the  shell  upward,  and 
(6)  that  the  force  of  gravity  urges  it  downward,  de- 
scribe and  specify  an  actual  opposition;  but  the  two 
statements  as  such  are  not  opposed  to  each  other  as 
are  the  really  contradictory  assertions  (a)  that  the 
shell  is  moving  upward,  and  (6)  that  it  is  moving 
downward.  The  first  two  are  opposed,  but  not  in 
disparity;  they  can  both  be  true  simultaneously.  The 
second  two  cannot  both  be  true  of  the  same  object,  in 
the  same  sense,  at  the  same  time.    If  the  word  "con- 


1*  Concept  of  Consciousness,  p.  273. 
"  Ibid.,  p.  275. 


234  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

tradiction"  is  used  to  name  the  first  type  of  opposi- 
tion, then  some  other  word  would  have  to  be  found 
to  tag  the  second;  in  some  way  or  other  language 
would  have  to  provide  for  so  evident  a  difference. 
Certainly,  the  simpler  course  would  be  to  accept  the 
present  usage,  which  does  take  care  of  the  distinction. 
If  it  be  replied  that  all  that  Mr.  Holt  means  is  that 
in  the  case  of  logical  contradiction  the  two  propositions 
oppose  each  other  exactly  as  two  forces  oppose  each 
other  in  the  material  cosmos — as  Fouillee  might  have 
pictured  the  competing  energy  of  mental  entities  in  his 
theory  of  "idee-force" — it  would  still  be  impossible  to 
agree  with  him.  In  the  first  place,  the  opposition  of 
contradictory  propositions  simply  is  not  in  principle 
similar  to  the  opposition  of  forces.  The  resultant  of 
two  forces  is  never  a  destruction  of  either;  on  the 
contrary,  each  force  realizes  its  total  effect  even 
though  it  act  in  conjunction  with  others  which  will 
undo  what  it  individually  does.  The  competing  force, 
far  from  canceling,  does  not  even  diminish  its  com- 
petitor in  the  slightest  degree.  That,  when  forces  act 
in  conjunction,  each  realizes  in  the  resultant  precisely 
the  effect  that  it  would  produce  if  acting  alone  is,  in- 
deed, the  fundamental  theorem  of  the  science  of 
kinetics.  Such  is  certainly  not  the  case  with  two 
competing,  mutually  exclusive  propositions  between 
which  the  thinking  subject  is  obliged  to  choose.  The 
final  judgment  in  such  a  case  is  anything  but  a  cogni- 
tive resultant  in  which  each  of  the  opposed  judgments 
retains  its  full  validity  and,  though  overshadowed, 
reahzes  its  complete  effect.  And,  in  the  second  place, 
even  if  this  analogy  did  hold,  it  would  hardly  be  of 
service  to  Mr.   Holt  because  of  the  epistemological 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    235 

dualism  it  suggests.  For  him  there  is  no  mental  realm 
and  mental  facts  separate  from  and  in  any  sense 
duplicating  the  objective  realm  of  fact.  And  when, 
with  him,  you  have  identified  the  knowledge  content 
and  the  thing  known,  the  fact  comes  back  that  in  the 
field  of  objective  knowledge  there  are  the  two  clearly 
distinct  types  of  relationship,  which  relationships  must 
be  separately  defined  and  should  be  separately  named. 

It  seems,  therefore,  that  one  may  hold  fairly  enough 
to  the  essentially  empirical  origin  and  reference  of  the 
law  of  noncontradiction  without  grave  risk  of  being 
committed  to  any  so  mechanically  realistic  a  position 
as  that  presented  in  The  Concept  of  Consciousness. 

To  sum  up,  then:  The  law  of  noncontradiction 
means  one  of  two  things;  either  that  predicates  that 
are  found  to  be  incompatible  in  reality  shall  on  no 
account  be  attributed  in  thought  to  an  identical  sub- 
ject, or  that  one  shall  not  in  thought  both  assert  and 
deny  the  same  predicate  of  the  same  subject  at  the 
same  time.  In  the  first  case  it  is  explicitly  empirical 
and  can  censor  present  judgment  only  as,  in  all  proc- 
esses of  apperception,  the  weighted  generalizations  of 
the  past  condition  present  knowing.  In  the  second 
case  we  are  doubtless  dealing  with  a  kind  of  necessity, 
but  not  the  one  from  which  could  possibly  be  inferred 
anything  regarding  the  structure  of  objective  reality. 

The  traditional  law  of  the  excluded  middle  is  omit- 
ted from  this  account,  not  because  it  is  supposed  to  be 
any  less  important  or  less  interesting  than  the  other 
two,  but  because  it  does  not  seem  to  have  any  direct 
part  in  the  major  premise  of  the  idealistic  argument 
from  epistemology.      It  is  the  force  of  that  argument 


236  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

(not  the  truth  of  its  conclusion)  that  it  is  the  purpose 
of  this  discussion  to  review.  If  it  has  been  possible  to 
show  that  these  laws  are  not  a  fundamental  bias  in 
the  mental  structure  which,  if  knowledge  is  to  be  vin- 
dicated, the  outer  world  must  be  assumed  to  dupli- 
cate, but  primarily  inductive  and  inferential  genera 
that,  because  of  their  pervasive  presence,  have  come 
to  seem  transcendent  in  character,  then  it  is  obviously 
impossible  to  argue  from  their  necessity  to  a  parallel- 
ism in  structure  between  the  mind  and  the  world  it 
knows.  This  is  not  to  say  that  there  might  be  valid 
thinking  without  respect  of  them.  No  doubt  they 
dominate  in  the  processes  of  knowledge  acquisition. 
But  they  command  and  compel  us  by  the  only  force 
that  thinking  knows — the  coercion  of  fact. 

It  remains  to  notice  a  little  further  the  question 
regarding  the  postulate  of  knowledge.  A  postulate 
may  be  taken  to  differ  from  an  ordinary  assumption 
in  the  pressure,  practical  or  theoretical,  that  is  back 
of  it.  It  differs  from  axioms  in  the  ordinary  sense  in 
that  such  sanction  is  not  a  corollary  of  any  a-priori  or 
immediate  insight  into  its  truth.  Mr.  Russell  has 
pointed  out  that  some  of  the  axioms  of  mathematics 
are  so  very  abstract  as  to  lose  the  sense  of  mimediate 
certitude  ordinarily  attaching  to  axioms.  They  are 
known  to  be  true  only  because  they  are  presupposi- 
tions of  other  simple  propositions  that  are  imme- 
diately seen  to  be  true.  But  even  these  more  ulterior 
axioms  would  be  distinguishable  from  a  postulate  like 
the  postulate  of  knowledge  in  that  still  the  necessity 
of  the  axiom  is,  mediately  or  immediately,  the  unan- 
swerableness   of   direct   intellectual   insight,    while   a 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES    237 

postulate  may  arise  from  a  practical  or  ethical  neces- 
sity. The  postulate,  in  other  words,  is  an  assumption 
in  the  sense  that  it  represents  in  some  way  an  aggres- 
sive act  of  the  mind.  But  that  act  is  not  at  heart  a 
free  and  arbitrary  one;  it  is  the  outcome  of  some  kind 
of  pressure,  either  practical  or  theoretical.  Whether 
such  usage  is  universal  or  not,  the  word  "postulate" 
will  be  used  in  that  sense  in  what  follows. 

The  "knowledge"  that  is  both  the  starting  point 
and  the  final  problem  of  epistemology  is  quite  unan- 
imously distinguished  from  subjective  imagination  or 
the  mere  having  of  states.  It  is  not  simply  a  series  of 
interesting  events  in  the  knower's  head,  but  a  real 
connecting  link  between  the  mind  and  the  world  with 
which  it  deals.  This  difference  between  cognitive 
states  as  mental  events  and  the  same  states  in  their 
capacity  as  cognitive  is  said  to  make  the  difference  in 
subject  matter  between  the  psychology  of  knowledge 
and  the  science  of  epistemology. 

But  suppose  the  outcome  of  the  study  of  cognitive 
states  should  be  the  conclusion  that  knowledge  is  im- 
possible.'* Suppose  that,  having  set  out  as  Kant  did 
to  inquire  how  knowledge  is  possible,  one  should  find 
oneself  obliged  to  "destroy  knowledge"  and  be  con- 
tent with  the  unobstructed  belief  for  which  that  catas- 
trophe had  made  room.^* 

Kant  saw  his  way  out  of  the  difficulty  he  had  set 
forth  in  the  irresistibleness  of  the  moral  postulate. 
Having  found  the  starry  heavens  above  him  so  much 
a  creation  of  the  mind  itself,  he  could  save  himself 
from  solipsism  by  an  appeal  to  the  moral  law  within. 
That  was  absolute,  while  the  other  was  relative,  and 
thus  he  was  enabled  to  reach  again  to  an  outer  world 


238  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

from  which  he  had  seemed  to  be  barred  by  the  sub- 
jectivity of  tlie  categories.  Duty  and  responsibility 
could  bridge  the  chasm  between  the  self  and  ultimate 
Reality  and  serve  as  a  warrant  and  sanction  of  the 
faith  for  which  his  intellectual  agnosticism  had  cleared 
the  way.  In  other  words,  the  categorical  imperative 
made  unnecessary  any  fundamental  assumption  of  the 
possibility  of  knowledge  as  a  starting  point  for  meta- 
physics. 

But  the  course  of  thought  during  the  last  century 
has  set  this  alternative  in  many  a  strange  light.  In 
contrast  with  the  familiar  Hegelian  epistemological 
absolutism  only  a  few,  like  Professor  Andrew  Seth, 
have  preferred  to  build  their  absolutism  on  the  moral 
postulate  (thus  following  Kant).  "We  must  conclude 
that  the  end  which  we  recognize  as  alone  worthy  of 
attainment  is  also  the  end  of  existence  as  such."^^  As 
Hegel  had  identified  thought  and  being,  this  identifies 
being  with  morality.  But  a  very  important  departure 
was  made  by  Professor  Huxley  in  his  humanistic 
representation  of  morality.  Objective  nature,  he  re- 
minds us,  knows  no  moral  ends;  it  treats  alike  the 
just  and  the  unjust,  and  seems  content  with  the  ruth- 
less decision  of  tooth  and  claw.  In  man  only  does 
justice,  fairness,  mercy,  altruism,  or  personal  obliga- 
tion count.  Man's  morality,  in  other  words,  is  his 
own  proud  construction;  it  is  at  once  an  achievement 
of  his  history  and  a  diflerentium  of  his  species.  Mo- 
rality is  not  what  binds  us  to  nature,  but,  rather,  it  is 
what  distinguishes  us  from  it.  Where  Kant  had  in- 
sisted that  the  understanding  makes  nature,  Huxley 
replies  that  the  active  self  creates  its  moral  world;  as 

"  Mans  Place  in  the  Cosmos,  p.  32. 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES  239 

Kant,  to  escape  solipsism,  had  relied  upon  the  objec- 
tive validity  of  moral  obligation,  Huxley  depended 
upon  the  objective  validity  of  knowledge  in  order  to 
set  forth  his  doctrine  of  the  mind's  activity  in  the 
constitution  of  the  moral  law.  This  theory,  which  is 
such  a  complete  reversal  of  that  of  Kant,  has  not  only 
found  easy  acceptance  in  the  rapidly  widening  an- 
thropological view  of  life,  but  has  found  genuine 
spiritual  interpretation.  One  has  only  to  think,  in 
this  connection,  of  the  hardy  idealism  of  Professor 
Eucken  or  the  austere  beauty  of  Mr.  Russell's  The 
Free  Man's  Worship. 

At  any  rate,  the  moral  issue  has  turned  out  to  be  a 
precarious  device  for  the  ontological  objectification  of 
conscious  life.  It  may  be  a  pathway  to  Reality,  but 
few  now  care  to  risk  it  as  the  only  pathway.  And  that 
brings  us  back  to  the  original  epistemological  prob- 
lem: Is  it  necessary  to  make,  as  the  basal  philosophi- 
cal premise,  the  assumption  that  knowledge  is  possible? 

That  question  cannot  be  answered  until  one  knows 
precisely  what  such  an  assumption  calls  for.  Ob- 
viously, it  is  not  to  be  a  guarantee  of  all  cognitive 
processes,  else  it  would  be  contradicted  by  the  first 
case  of  error.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  it  can  hardly 
be  taken  to  authenticate  any  specific  classes  or  groups 
of  judgments  or  perceptions  without  becoming  either 
a  complete  petitio  (if  it  be  taken  to  refer  only  to  those 
judgments  that  are  known  on  other  grounds  to  be 
valid)  or  else  a  merely  empirical  conclusion  in  par- 
ticular cases  (in  which,  if  it  be  a  general  epistemologi- 
cal postulate,  it  would  again  also  have  assumed  itself). 
Since  it  carries  within  itself,  as  a  postulate,  no  de- 
termining limitations  of  context  or  occasion,  one  seems 


240  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

driven  by  it  either  to  claim  an  utterly  untenable 
infallibility  of  judgment,  or  else  to  be  lost  in  an  un- 
certain and  indefinite  application  to  specific  cases. 

To  this  it  may  be  replied: 

(1)  That  all  that  the  postulate  asserts  is  the  possi- 
bility— not  the  actuality — of  knowledge.  Naturally 
enough,  it  may  be  said,  an  assumption  of  the  actual 
validity  of  knowledge  would  label  every  real  judgment 
as  true;  but  to  orient  the  mind  comfortably  in  its 
world  it  is  only  necessary  to  assume  that  reality  is 
such  that  knowledge  is  possible.  That  is  a  conceiv- 
able point  of  view.  But  the  question  of  validity  is 
not  to  be  so  easily  sidetracked.  Unless  the  knowledge 
that  is  possible  is  valid  knowledge,  it  would  be  no 
better  than  the  noncognitive  states  of  imagination 
from  which,  as  a  matter  of  primary  definition,  it  had 
been  distinguished.  It  remains,  then,  the  assumption 
that  valid  knowledge  is  possible.  This,  again,  either 
applies  to  knowledge  in  general,  or  it  is  a  statistical  or 
specific  deduction  from  particular  cases  known,  with- 
out the  prior  aid  of  the  postulate,  to  be  valid  instances. 

Or  (2)  may  it  be  understood  to  mean  a  kind  of  com- 
mensurability  of  the  mind  and  reality,  a  relation  of 
"rapport,"  that  is  implied  alike  by  truth  or  by  error? 
Are  we  to  say,  in  other  words,  that  Thought  (A)  and 
Thing  (B)  are  already  in  epistemological  relation  with 
each  other  when  A  is  mistaken  about  B?  Some  such 
position  as  this  seems  to  be  implied  in  the  treatment 
of  the  assumption  by  Professor  Royce  and,  in  another 
way,  by  Professor  Ladd.  Certain  it  is  that  the  relation 
even  of  error  between  Thought  and  Thing  is  different 
in  some  sense  from  no  relation  at  all.  But  this  does 
not  prove  error  to  be  a  real  relation  between  the  mind 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES  241 

and  reality.  Indeed,  Professor  Royce  comes  to  the 
conclusion  that  error  contributes  to  the  epistemologi- 
cal  enterprise  only  in  so  far  as  the  fact  of  error  can  be 
shown  to  involve  a  basis  of  truth.  A  judgment  is  not 
true  or  false  in  general  or  in  and  of  itself.  It  can  be 
true  or  false  only  concerning  some  ideally  designated 
object  or  other,  and  for  it  to  be  false  in  that  neces- 
sarily teleological  sense  it  must  assume  in  particular 
the  validity  (not  the  epistemological  possibility)  of 
the  reference  by  which  its  object  is  identified.  And 
this,  so  far  as  any  general  prior  assumption  of  the 
possibility  of  valid  knowledge  is  concerned,  is  no  bet- 
ter off  than  any  other  specific  act  of  cognition;  it 
implies  the  possibility  of  validity  in  general  only  in 
so  far  as  it  is  known,  on  other  grounds,  to  be  valid  itself. 
Suppose,  again,  that  the  postulate  be  read  in  exten- 
sion. Does  the  possibility  of  knowledge  mean  that 
everything  is  ultimately  knowable?  This  has  prob- 
ably never  been  explicitly  claimed,  at  least  not  with- 
out heavy  emphasis  upon  the  distinction  of  finite  and 
infinite  intelligence.  And  it  is  with  the  finite  that  we 
have  to  deal.  It  is  quite  logically  possible  to  claim 
that  everything  is  knowable  even  to  a  finite  mind 
though,  as  finite,  it  could  not  know  all  things.  All 
sugar  is  edible,  though  no  one  subject  can  eat  it  all. 
Might  not  everything,  therefore,  be  knowable?  Of 
course  it  might  be.  If  such  a  premise  were  found  im- 
plicit in  our  cognitive  nature,  there  would  be  no 
a-priori  objection  to  making  the  assumption.  But, 
except  perhaps  in  the  case  of  a  few  like  Parmenides 
or  Hegel  who  dare  to  equate  thought  and  being,  the 
postulate,  considered  as  an  epistemological  necessity, 
is  not  generally  extended  so  far. 


242  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  hard  to  see,  if  it  be  regarded 
as  an  epistemological  necessity,  how  any  limiting  Hne 
is  to  be  drawn.  If  the  hmitation  were  in  the  facts 
themselves,  we  could  never  know  it  any  more  than  we 
could  know  a  limit  of  space.  Just  as,  in  the  latter  case, 
we  would  be  thinking  back  to  a  region  (a  space)  in 
which  there  was  no  space,  so  in  this  case  we  would 
assume  to  know  of  strata  in  reality  that  could  not  be 
known.  This  would  mean  (1)  that  there  were  things 
so  at  parallax  with  our  minds  that  our  judgments 
could  be  neither  correct  nor  mistaken  concerning  them, 
or  else  (2)  merely  that  they  were  so  constructed  that 
our  thought  about  them  could  not  be  valid  concerning 
them.  And  either  is  obviously  set  aside  by  the  familiar 
consideration  that  to  know  such  a  limit  is  already  to 
transcend  it. 

But  it  is  doubtful  if,  in  any  case,  a  limitation  merely 
in  the  facts  themselves  would  suffice.  There  is  no 
possibility,  m  the  last  analysis,  of  relieving  the  postu- 
late of  the  responsibility.  If  the  dividing  line  between 
the  knowable  and  the  unknowable  were  primarily  an 
objective  one,  the  postulate  would  surely  have  to 
make  some  provision  for  the  recognition  of  it;  and  if 
the  limitation  were  inherent  in  the  nature  of  the  mind 
which  establishes  the  postulate  itself,  surely  the  latter 
would  be  inadequate  to  its  task  if  it  did  not  embody 
such  an  organic  circumscription  of  its  own  function. 
But  in  either  case  one  is  faced  by  the  difficulty  men- 
tioned in  the  preceding  paragraph — the  difficulty  of 
stating  valid  limits  of  the  range  of  validity. 

Apart,  however,  from  the  question  of  the  content 
of  the  postulate,  there  remains  the  further  question 
of  the  circumstance  or  occasion  of  its  being   made. 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES   243 

For  a  postulate  means  some  kind  of  act  that  must 
have,  in  some  sense,  a  locus  and  a  context.  Here  also 
more  than  one  alternative  suggests  itself. 

(1)  It  obviously  is  not  made  consciously  at  the  be- 
ginning either  of  our  knowing  life  or  of  specific  proc- 
esses of  knowledge  in  isolation. 

(2)  But  is  it  subconsciously  assumed?  It  would  be 
possible  to  hold  that  some  such  event  occurs  subcon- 
sciously before  cognition  proceeds.  The  chief  reason 
for  not  adopting  this  alternative  is  the  apparent  entire 
absence  of  any  reason  for  adopting  it. 

Or  (3)  it  might  be  assumed  when  knowledge  be- 
came reflective  or  self-conscious.  But  history  would 
seem  to  be  against  such  a  view.  The  problem  of 
knowledge  itself  was  reflectively  raised  long  before 
anybody  found  such  a  postulate  necessary.  In  fact, 
it  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  stated  as  a  clear-cut 
alternative  before  Descartes.  While  it  may  turn  out 
that  the  ultimate  philosophy  will  regard  such  an  ex- 
plicit assumption  as  necessary  for  a  valid  theory  of 
knowledge,  it  is  at  least  true  that  thought  was  fruit- 
fully reflective  in  its  concept  of  knowledge  long  before 
the  necessity  of  this  prior  assumption  was  declared. 

From  another  angle  one  may  remind  us  (4)  that 
the  postulate,  while  perhaps  debatable  in  academic 
discussions,  is  nevertheless  assumed  by  everybody  as 
the  rational  justification  of  practical  life.  But  here 
once  more  is  the  old  ambiguity.  If  this  is  to  say  that 
the  assumption  is  made  in  practice,  it  would  seem  to 
be  palpably  false  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases.  The 
individual  is  rare  who  prefaces  his  participation  in 
practical  affairs  with  an  acknowledgment  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  knowledge!    If  it  be  claimed  only  that  any 


244  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

cognitive  being  would  see  the  necessity  of  it  if  the 
question  were  raised,  one  has  only  to  point  to  the 
differences  of  opinion  on  the  part  of  those  who  have 
reflectively  raised  the  issue. 

Or  (5)  it  may  be  said  that,  while  such  an  assump- 
tion is  not  always  made  as  a  premise  even  of  epistemo- 
logical  speculation,  it  should  be,  since  it  is  logically 
implicit  in  the  data  of  that  science.  As,  in  mathe- 
matics, everything  can  be  proved  except  the  ultimate 
axioms  which  have  to  be  assumed  as  a  starting  point 
and  just  on  that  account  cannot  themselves  be  proved, 
so  epistemology  has  to  start  with  or  from  something 
assumed  on  trust.  To  which  it  may  be  replied  that 
even  in  mathematics  there  is  so  much  question  as 
to  the  content  of  this  axiomatic  terminus  a  quo  that 
any  mathematician  is  under  considerable  obligation  to 
justify  his  choice  of  axioms,  even  though  it  be  granted 
that  none  of  them  can  be  demonstrated  from  prior 
mathematical  premises.  He  must  show  that  they  are 
necessary  for  the  coherence  of  his  science  as  well  as 
being  antecedently  unprovable.  And,  even  granting 
for  the  sake  of  argument  the  parallel  between  these 
axioms  and  the  epistemological  postulate,  it  has  been 
the  purpose  of  the  foregoing  to  show  that  the  latter 
would  not  stand,  in  its  own  field,  before  a  demand  for 
justification  which  even  a  mathematical  proposition, 
set  up  as  a  mathematical  axiom,  has  to  face. 

After  so  unwarrantably  long  a  discussion  of  the  pos- 
tulate of  the  possibility  of  knowledge,  the  positive 
opinion  that  underlay  it  need  occupy  little  space.  // 
the  situation  were  just  as  Descartes  pictured  it — if 
the  mind  knew  first  itself,  then  its  intermedia  of 
knowledge,  and  finally,  indirectly  and  by  inference. 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES  245 

the  world  outside  itself,  a  postulate  of  the  possibility 
of  knowledge  would  be  an  a-priori  necessity,  perhaps, 
as  a  step  in  the  process.  The  logical  continuity  of  the 
transition  would  be  broken  without  it.  But  nothing 
would  be  harder  to  prove  than  that  such  is  the  case. 
That  the  knowledge  of  self  is  a  relatively  late  attain- 
ment of  thought  and  is,  even  now,  a  subject  on  which 
there  is  the  greatest  imaginable  divergence  of  opinion, 
should  be  suflBcient  certainly  to  cast  some  doubt  upon 
the  Cartesian  premises.  Besides,  the  argument  cuts 
both  ways.  If  it  is  necessary  to  assume  the  possibility 
of  knowing  the  world  outside  the  mind,  it  is  equally 
necessary  to  postulate  the  validity  of  the  distinction 
between  the  mind  and  its  world,  the  possibility  of 
knowing  the  mind  itself,  and  even  perhaps  to  assume 
the  possibility  of  making  valid  postulates!  In  a  sense 
any  function  doubtless  assumes  its  own  possibility; 
walking  assumes  the  possibility  of  walking,  or  a  man's 
effort  to  write  poetry  assumes  (however  precariously) 
his  ability  to  do  so.  But  it  is  hard  to  think  of  such 
an  assumption  as  either  profound  or  valuable. 

There  is  one  other  point  to  notice  in  this  connection. 
The  assumption  of  knowledge  is  not  the  same  thing  as 
assuming  a  bridge,  a  cognitive  rapport,  between  the 
knowing  mind  and  the  balance  of  reality,  the  world 
outside  the  mind.  Because,  the  knowing  mind  itself 
is  an  object  of  its  own  cognitive  states.  If  the  very 
continuity  of  Being  between  the  mind  and  the  rest  of 
the  universe  consisted  in  a  cognitive  interaction  only, 
not  only  would  some  familiar  conclusions  follow  very 
easily  but  many  other  unfamiliar  ones  would  also 
follow  if  the  matter  were  pressed.  Two  considerations 
would  seem,  however,  to  discourage  such  a  view.    In 


246  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  first  place,  if  the  being  of  consciousness  consisted 
fundamentally  in  its  cognitive  function,  one  would 
have  to  go  to  the  length  of  accounting  for  other  kinds 
of  subjective  states  as  the  products  of  cognition 
(which  would  be  difficult)  or  leave  a  complete  existen- 
tial disparity  between  cognitive  and  noncognitive  ele- 
ments of  the  same  consciousness.  In  the  second  place, 
sensation  as  the  elemental  fact  of  cognition  not  only 
is  not  primarily  an  act  on  the  part  of  the  subject  but 
has  a  being  and  even  a  character  quite  distinguishable 
from  and  in  addition  to  its  cognitive  value.  In  the 
third  place,  some  ideas  may  purport  to  be  true  about 
certain  other  ideas  that  belong  or  have  belonged  to  the 
same  consciousness ;  and  when  they  become  reflective  in 
this  sense  the  relationship  between  ideas  and  ideas  is 
exactly  the  same,  in  so  far  as  it  is  noetic  (in  virtue, 
that  is,  of  its  sheer  abstract  capacity  of  being  true  or 
false)  as  the  relationship  between  ideas  and  objective 
things.  A  theory  of  the  way  in  which  the  idea  reaches 
or  relates  to  its  object  is  therefore  anything  but  a  theory 
of  the  basal  concatenation  of  subject  and  object.  It 
may  assume  it,  or  be  a  factor  in  it,  or  may  even  in  the 
last  analysis  throw  much  collateral  light  upon  it;  but 
it  is  not  identical  with  the  fact  of  such  concatenation. 

Finally,  let  one  consider  what  is  essentially  the 
same  thing  from  another  point  of  view.  Suppose  one 
grant  the  whole  sequence:  "I  know  myself  directly. 
The  outer  world  I  know  only  in  the  form  of  thought. 
Assuming,  then,  that  my  knowledge  is  real  and  valid, 
the  outer  world  must  itself  be  cast  in  thought  forms," 
etc.  It  is  obvious  that  the  conclusion  follows  just  in 
so  far  as  my  effective  commerce  with  the  outer  world 
is  a  matter  of  thought.     But  that  may  be  no  more 


SOME  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  PREMISES  247 

than  a  small  fraction  of  the  actual  nexus.  The  whole 
body  of  affective  processes  and  emotions,  the  overt 
functions  of  volition  with  all  its  deep-lying  instinctive 
foundations,  the  dim  and  unknown  recesses  of  the  sub- 
conscious life,  all  this  is  left  untouched  by  the  meta- 
physical inference  based  upon  the  postulate  of  knowl- 
edge. The  parallelism,  if  it  holds  even  in  the  most 
elaborate  way  within  the  province  of  cognitive  subject 
and  object,  still  concerns  but  a  fraction  of  consciousness. 
If,  then,  all  the  above-mentioned  remainder  be  without 
parallel  in  objective  existence,  and  if  there  be  a  similar 
proportion  of  reality  to  which  cognition  accordingly 
does  not  apply,  it  might  well  act  as  a  millstone  about 
the  neck  of  the  most  validly  inferred  idealistic  veneer  of 
logical  intelligibility.  In  no  case,  therefore,  could  the 
argument  in  question  authenticate  a  complete  idealistic 
conclusion.  Even  if  all  the  traditional  or  Cartesian 
premises  be  granted,  one  could  at  best  only  say  that  the 
neotic  function  in  the  conscious  self  seems,  on  the 
basis  of  the  enigmatical  postulate  of  the  possibility  of 
valid  knowledge,  to  imply  a  corresponding  factor  or 
element  of  logicality  in  objective  reality.  And  this 
would  still  be  compatible  with  a  preponderating  bal- 
ance in  a  nonidealistic  direction. 

It  is  not  the  interest  of  the  above  discussion  to  sup- 
port any  such  positive  nonidealistic  conclusion,  but 
only  to  point  out  that  while  (1)  the  argument  from 
the  possibility  of  knowledge  is  itself  ambiguous  and  of 
uncertain  value,  it  still  (2)  does  not,  even  if  accepted 
as  valid  in  its  own  field,  assimilate  to  personality  or 
consciousness  any  more  of  outer  reality  than  logical 
cognition  proportionately  occupies  in  the  living  mass 
of  consciousness  itself. 


IX 

DEMOCRATIZING  THEOLOGY 

Herbert  Alden  Youtz 

It  is  the  fashion  to-day  to  decry  every  ministry  to 
life  that  is  not  "practical."  Our  very  philosophies 
follow  the  fashions  and  deal  often  in  superficialities 
and  utilities.  Yet  every  earnest  man  has  a  deep 
spiritual  experience  which  refutes  these  superficial  esti- 
mates of  life.  Ideas,  convictions,  spiritual  insights  are 
the  ultimate  sources  of  life — men  do  not  live  by  bread 
alone.  The  mistaken  Gospel  of  Wages  must  be  re- 
placed by  a  Gospel  of  Manhood  which  shall  sympa- 
thetically diagnose  anew  the  heart-breaking  symptoms 
of  human  need  that  find  expression  in  the  current 
social  upheaval.  Religion  is  the  greatest  and  oldest 
social  power  in  the  world.  Religious  hunger  cannot 
be  satisfied  by  cheap  substitutes  for  a  Living  God. 
Neither  can  it  be  quieted  by  scientific  assurance  that 
"religion  is  an  emotion."  All  hunger  is  an  emotion — 
but  starvation  is  none  the  less  a  fact.  Is  there  a  Liv- 
ing God?  Who  is  He?  Where  is  He?  How  shall  I 
find  Him?  These  questions  are  insistent.  These  ques- 
tions can  be  answered  and  religious  hunger  can  be 
satisfied.  Human  life  and  human  society  can  be  fed, 
energized,  from  above — from  within !  The  great  social 
ill  is  spiritual  anemia.  The  remedy  is  radical,  and 
calls  for  an  expert  physician.  The  quack  remedies 
applied  to  the  symptoms  must  be  replaced  by  attack- 
ing the  spiritual  sources  of  human  ills.    The  practical 

248 


DEMOCRATIZING  THEOLOGY  249 

ministries  which  we  are  all  so  eager  to  offer  must  pro- 
foundly understand  the  spiritual  nature  of  personality 
and  its  need.  The  genius  of  Jesus  lay  in  this  discovery. 
The  power  of  Jesus'  Gospel  lies  in  speaking  "with  au- 
thority" to  men's  deepest  consciousness.  We  shall 
escape  the  threatening  materialism  of  to-day  only  by 
a  deeper  diagnosis  and  by  heroic  remedies.  The  dis- 
cussion which  follows  undertakes  such  a  diagnosis,  and 
is  addressed  to  thoughtful  leaders  of  the  Church 
everywhere.  Especially  does  it  long  to  bring  a  vision 
of  the  need  of  the  world  to  young  men  and  women, 
and  a  vision  of  the  opportunity  for  ministry  to  need, 
that  faces  educated  religious  leadership.  It  aims  to 
sound  a  note  sometimes  lacking  in  our  discussions  of 
"religious  education." 

Religion,  like  all  of  the  spiritual  possessions  of  the 
race,  grows  by  vital  processes.  Theology,  the  rational 
interpretation  of  religion,  is  likewise  subject  to  the 
laws  of  growth.  A  vital  theology  is  never  a  manufac- 
tured thing.  It  germinates  and  grows  and  bears  fruit 
in  the  soil  and  climate  and  under  the  thought-culture 
of  a  particular  age  or  people.  What  will  an  age  of 
dawning  democracy  contribute  to  the  shaping  of  Chris- 
tian theology  .J*    That  is  the  problem  of  this  discussion. 

The  leadership  of  men  passes  by  slow  processes  from 
the  primitive  stage  of  the  tyranny  of  the  strong, 
through  feudalism  and  constitutional  monarchy,  to  the 
ideals  of  democracy  and  freedom.  Democracy  is  that 
native,  irresistible  force  planted  in  the  heart  of  a  race, 
by  which  with  growing  insight  it  throws  off,  one  by 
one,  the  petty  tyrannies  of  life,  and  achieves  ideals  of 
freedom  and  autonomy. 


250  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Democracy  is  not  first  of  all  an  organized  form  of 
government;  it  is  a  spirit,  an  attitude  toward  life. 
Modern  science  has  thrown  off  the  tyranny  of  eccle- 
siastical control  and  achieved  freedom,  democracy. 
Modern  industry  is  seething  with  revolt  against  tyran- 
nical control,  trying  to  achieve  democratic  freedom. 
The  nations  are  in  revolt  against  artificial  tyrannies, 
trying  to  find  the  form  of  government  where  the  peo- 
ple can  exercise  self-control,  in  the  interests  of  their 
higher  destiny.  The  democratic  meaning  of  the  mo- 
mentous world  happenings  since  1914  is  that  the 
yeast  of  democracy  has  not  waited  for  the  slow  proc- 
esses of  evolution,  but  has  burst  forth  in  earthquake 
and  volcano.  The  task  of  spiritual  leadership  is  to 
control  this  mighty  force  and  educate  this  passion  for 
freedom  which  so  strongly  marks  all  social  movements 
of  our  day.  And  the  history  of  religious  interpretation 
reflects  tardily,  but  surely,  the  awakening  spirit  of 
democracy,  feeling  its  way  cautiously,  but  passion- 
ately, out  of  the  old  despotisms  and  feudalisms  of 
thought,  into  the  larger  freedom  of  the  spirit.  And 
what  can  contribute  more  to  the  processes  of  civiliza- 
tion than  the  spiritualizing,  the  democratizing,  the 
freeing  of  our  religious  thinking,  and  thus  putting  it 
at  the  service  of  the  New  Age  that  is  dawning?  Chris- 
tian theology  was  once  rated  as  "queen  of  all  the 
sciences."  It  has  fallen  from  its  pedestal  into  the 
dust.  But  theology  will  come  back  to  its  place  of 
power  when  it  shows  itself  trustworthy. 

The  democratizing  of  religion  is  one  of  the  signifi- 
cant processes  that  is  taking  place  just  now  at  an 
unprecedented  rate.  This  democratizing  comes  not 
with  observation;  but  it  is  coming  silently  and  inevit- 


DEMOCRATIZING  THEOLOGY  251 

ably.  The  very  conception  of  religion,  our  interpre- 
tation of  spiritual  processes,  and  even  our  way  of 
conceiving  the  living  God  and  his  relationship  to  our 
world,  is  undergoing  a  radical  transformation. 

Sometimes  a  minister  will  yield  to  the  temptation 
to  re-preach  sermons  from  his  barrel,  and  has  the 
curious,  indignant  experience  of  discovering  that  these 
sermons  have  become  innocuous.  He  preaches  the 
thing  that  he  wrote  about  Christ  ten  years  ago,  and 
he  has  a  sense  of  unreality  and  untruth.  He  preaches 
the  thing  that  holy  men  taught  him  about  God,  and 
he  knows  that  he  is  not  dealing  with  the  living  God, 
but  with  a  theological  God.  Our  Christologies  and 
our  doctrines  of  God  are  being  democratized.  The 
church  has  inherited  some  magnificent  systems  of 
theology,  cherished  through  the  generations  as  "The 
Faith  of  our  Fathers."  And  a  good  many  of  us  are 
making  the  disconcerting  discovery  that  these  splendid 
ideas  which  once  stirred  the  people  have  become 
denatured  and  powerless  to  affect  the  people.  They  do 
not  ring  true  to  our  modern  democratic  ideals ! 

There  is  a  superficial  way  in  which  a  man  may 
democratize  his  theology  by  going  over  it  and  sub- 
stituting for  the  monarch  God  a  democratized  divine 
ruler;  substituting  a  republic  of  God  for  a  kingdom 
of  God.  This  is  necessarily  an  artificial  thing  to  do, 
however  suggestive.  Theologies  grow  by  vital  proc- 
esses, and  it  is  only  by  understanding  the  principles 
of  growth  that  a  man  can  intelligently  and  effectively 
set  himself  to  the  task  of  reconstruction  for  a  demo- 
cratic age.  The  living  theology  of  to-day  must  root 
in  our  age  and  grow  in  our  thought  climate  and  receive 
the   most   intelligent   cultivation.      This   paper   deals 


252  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

with  some  of  tlie  tyrannies  that  beset  theological 
thinkers,  and  some  of  the  consequences  of  emancipat- 
ing theology  from  these  tyrannies.  We  cannot  get  at 
the  root  of  the  matter  by  discussing  devices  or 
patched-up  doctrines,  but  only  by  discussing  thought- 
movements,  certain  shaping  principles  of  our  thinking 
which  find  expression  in  our  theologies. 

That  was  a  fine  insight  of  Sabatier  when  he  said, 
"To  the  thinking  man  a  discord  between  methods  is  a 
graver  matter  than  an  opposition  between  doctrines.'* 
The  matter  of  democratizing  theology  is  not  a  matter 
of  superficial  or  popular  modernizing  of  old  doctrines; 
it  is  a  matter  of  re-thinking  the  truth  about  God  and 
spiritual  reality — a  matter  of  right  or  wrong  intellectual 
method.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  popular  juggling  with 
evolution  and  socialistic  doctrines,  bringing  forth  a 
finite  god  while  the  crowd  gapes — after  the  manner  of 
H.  G.  Wells;  but  it  goes  back  to  the  thought-currents 
themselves,  and  tries  profoundly  to  understand  and 
test  conceptions  and  thought-movements,  that  it  may 
determine  their  truth  and  their  value  for  religion. 

I  will  speak  of  three  tyrannies  that  the  democratic 
spirit  in  theology  must  overthrow:  The  Tyranny  of 
Orthodoxy,  The  Tyranny  of  Mechanism,  and  the 
Tyranny  of  ExternaUsm. 

I 

By  the  Tyranny  of  Orthodoxy,  I  mean  not  any  par- 
ticular orthodoxy,  but  the  mental  habit  of  thinking 
religion  in  terms  of  fixed  standards,  and  not  of  living 
truth!  The  principle  of  operating  with  an  orthodoxy 
in  our  religious  thinking,  as  though  that  were  a  mark 
of  spirituality,  is  the  evil  I  want  to  arraign.    It  has 


DEMOCRATIZING  THEOLOGY  253 

come  to  be  one  of  the  most  despiritualizing  things  that 
haunt  our  theological  world.  The  spirit  of  democracy 
in  the  heart  of  many  preachers  is  trying  to  throw  off 
the  tyranny  of  orthodoxy,  and  be  free  to  think  things 
through  with  all  the  help  that  comes  from  the  present 
as  well  as  the  past.  For  if  the  consciousness  of  a 
Living  God  is  to  come  to  the  New  Age,  we  must  have 
a  living  theology. 

Let  me  illustrate  the  present  tyranny  of  orthodoxy 
by  reference  to  church  history.  A  half  century  ago 
the  church  was  in  a  turmoil  over  the  doctrine  of  crea- 
tion. The  orthodox  doctrine  held  that  the  divine 
creation  occupied  six  days.  Geology  taught  that 
world-making  occupied  millenniums.  The  situation 
was  tense  in  the  warfare  between  science  and  theology. 
Harmonizations  of  science  with  orthodoxy  multiplied. 
The  most  successful  "harmonization"  was  that  which 
held  that  though  geology  had  won  the  case,  still  there 
were  six  periods  of  creation,  "creative  days";  and  thus 
orthodoxy  was  saved!  It  brought  relief  to  multitudes 
of  pious  people;  and  there  are  churchmen  still  who 
curse  evolution  and  worship  the  six-day  theory. 
Surely  the  logic  of  this  sort  of  thing  has  had  its  day, 
though  it  has  not  yet  ceased  to  be.  The  principle  of 
measuring  spiritual  truth  and  religious  interpretations 
by  canons  and  infallible  rules  of  faith  still  persists. 

In  every  field  of  Christian  doctrine  the  tyranny  of 
an  orthodoxy  haunts  us,  with  evil  results.  Our  Chris- 
tologies,  our  conceptions  of  salvation,  our  conceptions 
of  God,  of  sin,  of  prayer,  of  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  in  human  life,  are  all  hampered  and  hindered  by 
a  thought-method,  a  sacred  thought-standard,  an  or- 
thodoxy beyond  which  a  man  may  not  venture  and 


254  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

be  regarded  as  safe!  Now  I  have  little  respect  for 
reckless  adventure  in  thinking;  but  I  believe  that  the 
spiritual  regeneration  that  must  come  to  the  Church 
of  Christ  in  the  New  Age  will  come  not  through  men 
who  play  safe  and  repeat  the  slogans  of  the  past,  but 
to  the  men  and  women  who  in  the  spirit  of  holy  adven- 
ture wrestle  with  the  meanings  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in 
our  modern  world  and  modern  social  movements,  and 
"go  forward"  in  their  thinking. 

Every  really  great  creative  age  has  dealt  with 
the  perennial  problems  of  religion  anew,  and  found 
inspired  conceptions  of  God,  inspired  conceptions  of 
God's  meanings  in  its  own  life.  Like  Jesus,  it  has 
fulfilled  the  old  and  passed  into  the  new  way  of  think- 
ing. Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said  by  them  of 
old  time  that  Luther  and  Calvin  and  Grotius  and 
Wesley  and  Hodge  and  Park  and  Finney^  are  the 
orthodox  guides  of  faith;  but  I  say  unto  you  that  the 
Spirit  of  the  hving  God,  of  the  great  holy  Christ,  can 
come  in  power  to  our  generation  only  as  we  realize 
that  our  own  thinking  is  God's  way  to  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  That  sense  of  responsibility,  that  sense  of 
prophecy — that  experimental  method  of  finding  God 
and  his  meanings — how  sadly  we  preachers  need  it! 
Theology  must  follow  Jesus'  method  of  growth  and 
living  inspiration,  not  the  scribal  method  of  holy  stan- 
dards. Creativeness  rather  than  conformity  must  be 
the  law  of  our  thinking. 

We  have  looked  backward  to  a  God  of  the  Past,  to 
"sacred  history,"  to  sacred  thought-guides.    All  ortho- 


*  This  address  was  given  from  the  Oberlin  pulpit  where  the  great 
evangelist,  Finney,  used  to  speak  as  pastor,  and  where  his  name  is  still 
revered. 


DEMOCRATIZING  THEOLOGY  255 

doxies  do  that.  We  have  said,  "God's  revelation  is  in  the 
past."  And  as  a  consequence  our  own  age  has  seemed 
secular,  and  our  own  thinking  we  have  distrusted,  and 
our  own  prophets  we  have  stoned,  and  we  have  given 
the  people  a  second-hand  account  of  God  out  of  the 
world  that  used  to  be,  instead  of  a  vision  of  God  living 
in  our  own  thought  and  life  and  work! 

Can  an  "orthodoxy"  guide  an  aroused  preacher  of 
righteousness  to  his  place  of  power  as  a  religious 
leader?  Are  we  not  stewards  of  the  thought  of  the 
past?  Do  faithful  stewards  keep  the  shining  coin  of 
thought  wrapped  in  a  napkin  or  do  they  invest  it? 

The  church  has  tacitly  assumed  in  the  past  that 
true  piety  and  spiritual  insight  is  the  possession  of 
the  conservatives,  and  that  liberals  are  under  suspicion 
because  they  are  liberal.  We  have  applauded  the 
"defenders  of  the  faith,"  and  we  have  unsparingly 
condemned  the  enlargers  of  the  faith.  We  have  en- 
dured the  liberal  spirit,  but  we  have  not  welcomed  it. 
Surely  the  time  has  come  to  insist  that  illiberalism 
and  conservatism  are  immoral  and  unspiritual  in  a 
world  of  progress;  they  are  contrary  to  God's  way  of 
working.  The  vision  of  God  must  come  to  the  people 
of  the  New  Age  through  the  liberal,  forward-looking, 
forward-moving  thinkers.  In  the  name  of  the  rising 
passion  for  spiritual  reality  and  a  spiritual  message 
for  the  people,  I  urge  upon  the  church  the  intellectual 
duty  of  a  progressive  interpretation  of  ethical  religion. 
For  the  great  days  of  religion  lie  ahead  of  us,  not  be- 
hind us!  And  the  achieving  of  the  theology  of  the 
future  must  be  our  inspiration;  not  the  defense  of  the 
theologies  of  the  past.  For  divine  revelation  is  a  living 
process,  never  discontinued.    God's  meanings  are  grow- 


256  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

ing  meanings;  and  growing  men  and  women  must  seize 
these  newer  revelations  for  the  blessing  of  the  world. 

II 

By  the  Tyranny  of  Mechanism  I  mean  the  wide- 
spread tendency  in  our  thinking  to  treat  the  expe- 
riences of  consciousness  as  though  a  man  were  simply 
a  resultant  and  not  an  actor.  The  ideals  of  natural 
science,  mechanism,  force,  cause  and  effect,  have  over- 
spread our  thought  of  the  personal  world  until  in  some 
cases  they  have  flouted  and  defeated  the  convictions 
of  freedom  and  responsible  action  and  of  creative 
idealism.  The  outcome  of  this  type  of  thinking  is 
materialism  and  naturalism.  The  trail  of  mechanical 
thinking  lies  over  our  religious  explanations,  leaving 
the  conviction  of  determinism,  materialism,  atheism, 
in  its  wake. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  the  convic- 
tion of  freedom  is  of  the  highest  service  to  the  welfare 
of  the  race.  No  dynamic  inspiration  so  affects  the 
spirit  of  a  man  as  the  belief  that  he  is  free  and  respon- 
sible. And  the  paralysis  of  that  vital  belief  cripples  a 
man's  powers  of  recovery  and  attainment.  The  vir- 
tual fatalism  of  much  so-called  Christian  philosophy 
strikes  at  the  very  beating  heart  of  all  spiritual  con- 
viction, emasculating  and  stultifying  our  creative  efforts. 
A  man  lives  and  works  best  under  the  spell  of  the  con- 
viction, *T  am  not  a  machine  nor  a  slave,  but  a  free 
man!" 

It  would  not  be  profitable  to  show  in  technical  de- 
tail here  the  history  of  the  rise  of  modern  Naturalism, 
getting  its  clew  from  natural  science  method,  and 
insisting  that  the  law  of  things  shall  be  the  law  of  a 


DEMOCRATIZING  THEOLOGY  257 

man.  It  is  a  subtle  process  creeping  into  our  thinking, 
but  it  is  very  real  and  cannot  be  met  by  popular 
magazine  philosophy.  Naturalism  is  the  thought- 
method  which  sees  the  spiritual  merely  as  a  continua- 
tion of  the  scheme  of  the  natural.  It  is  the  insistence 
that  the  spiritual  shall  have  no  significance  save  the 
secondary  significance  shed  from  the  natural.  It  says, 
truly,  "That  is  not  first  which  is  spiritual,  but  that 
which  is  natural";  and  then  it  passes  to  the  inference, 
"therefore  the  natural  must  be  authoritative  for  the 
spiritual,"  the  law  of  things  must  be  valid  for  per- 
sonality. We  accept  the  scientific,  evolutionary  de- 
scription; the  natural  comes  first.  We  challenge  that 
false  philosophic  inference;  for  the  spiritual,  the 
higher,  creative,  personal  facts — now  that  they  have 
arrived — are  authoritative  over  the  natural  order  and 
over  a  man's  whole  life.  A  man  as  a  man  has  a  right 
to  his  ideals  of  freedom,  and  has  the  capacity  to 
achieve  freedom,  whatever  his  pedigree  has  been.  The 
Indian  philosopher  gazes  at  a  point  in  space  until  he 
loses  his  very  sense  of  existence.  And  the  modern 
naturalistic  philosopher  fixes  his  eyes  on  his  animal 
pedigree,  the  animal  instincts  that  preceded  reason, 
until  he  is  persuaded  that  instinct  and  animal  impulse 
are  the  great  reality;  while  creative  reason  and  the 
ideals  of  freedom  are  illusions  and  mockery.  Which  is 
the  dream  and  which  is  the  reality?  Is  this  funda- 
mentally a  world  of  mechanism,  or  is  it  fundamentally 
a  world  of  personality  and  purpose?  The  answer  to 
that  question  is  fateful  for  religion. 

The  religious  philosophy  which  conquers  the  world 
must  resolve  that  uncertainty  and  re-evaluate  Moral 
Personality  as  a  creative  power,  re-evaluate  the  ideals 


258  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  conscience,  re-estimate  the  greatness  of  conscious- 
ness as  freedom  and  will.  No  interpretation  of  the 
meaning  of  the  tragic  world-war  seems  so  adequate 
as  that  which  sees  it  as  the  modern  epic-contest 
between  the  ideals  of  moral  personality  and  the  ideals 
of  force  and  materialism  and  mechanical  power 
and  world-mastery.  The  cause  of  the  War  was  the 
arrogant  challenge  of  Force.  The  victory  was  the 
victory  of  personality  and  its  spiritual  ideals,  over 
Force.  Thank  God  for  the  victory!  The  thing  that 
was  really  demonstrated  was  that  the  spirit  of  man 
is  mightier  than  mechanism!  Even  Field  Marshal 
Foch,  the  organizer  of  military  victory,  says,  "Battles 
are  lost  or  won,  not  materially,  but  morally."  Morale, 
the  power  of  spiritual  personality,  was  the  big  fact  in 
the  Great  War.    It  is  the  big  fact  in  the  universe. 

Now  in  almost  all  fields  of  our  thinking,  that  very 
battle  is  being  fought  out.  The  ideals  of  mechanism 
and  naturalism  are  militant  in  current  thinking,  striv- 
ing to  assert  their  supremacy.  And  nowhere  more 
than  in  the  fields  of  psychology  and  of  education  is 
the  significant  contest  going  on.  To  quote  the  lan- 
guage of  a  prominent  educator  and  psychologist, ^  *'We 
have  been  in  some  doubt  in  the  past  as  to  whether 
society  is  based  on  instincts  or  ideas.  We  have  talked 
about  our  institutions  as  intelligent,  but  studied  them 
as  if  they  were  mechanical.  Our  whole  treatment  of 
human  life  has  been  biological  rather  than  psychologi- 
cal. I  believe  that  the  period  of  biologizing  human 
life  is  over."  The  same  writer  protests  that  those 
"who  bear  the  name  of  psychologists  are  arrayed  on 

2  Professor  Judd's  Presidential  Address  before  the  American  Psycho- 
logical Association,  December  30,  1909.  Published  in  the  Psychological 
Review,  March,  1910,  vol.  xvii,  p.  97. 


DEMOCRATIZING  THEOLOGY  259 

the  side  of  physiologists  and  biologists";  and  he  de- 
clares that  "we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  newer  psychology" 
which  shall  deal  fairly  with  living  personality. 

I  have  cited  Professor  Judd's  article  in  the  Psycho- 
logical Review  that  you  may  not  feel  that  my  earnest- 
ness is  that  of  theological  interest,  and  that  I  have  no 
rational  justification.  Mechanism  and  its  ideals  are 
seeking  to  get  a  strangle-hold  upon  our  thinking  in  all 
fields.  It  is  tyrannizing  over  the  ideals  of  much  popu- 
lar literature  and  leavening  the  thought  of  the  masses 
with  materialism.^ 

The  democratizing  of  theology  calls  for  emancipa- 
tion from  this  tyranny.  For  the  ideals  of  religion,  her 
conceptions,  her  message,  her  goal,  her  challenge, 
depend  upon  a  conception  of  personality  as  living, 
creative  power;  a  conception  of  conscious  agency,  and 
not  of  blind  "cause  and  effect."  One  cannot  breathe 
in  the  atmosphere  of  Jesus'  teaching,  with  its  utter 
confidence  in  a  heavenly  Father,  and  its  confident  as- 
sertion of  human  values,  without  feeling  a  greatness  of 
spiritual  import  which  refutes  the  travesty  of  a 
mechanical  explanation.  And  we  who  labor,  at  the 
task  of  theology  in  the  democratic  spirit  want  the 
intellectual  right  to  think  of  a  living  God  in  living 
relations  with  men  and  women  who  are  great  enough 
to  respond  freely  to  his  call — free  to  accept,  free  to 
reject  his  love.  That  is  the  only  thing  that  makes 
love  and  work  great!  We  want  the  right  to  teach 
workers  that  they  are  "workers  together  with  God," 
not  cogs  in  a  machine.  That  gospel  is  needed  more 
than  all  else.    I  do  not  think  that  any  other  gospel  is 

3  A  remarkable  and  valuable  analysis  of  the  present  thought  situa- 
tion is  Professor  Stuart  P.  Sherman's  "On  Contemporary  Literature." 


260  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

true  enough  and  stirring  enough  to  solve  the  great 
crying  "labor  question." 

And  with  this  re-evaluation  of  personality  as  free 
and  creative,  our  Christologies  will  drop  the  unreali- 
ties of  the  older  formulations,  and  present  Christ  as 
the  Way  and  the  Truth  and  the  Life  for  our  age, 
which  more  than  any  previous  age  pants  for  life  and 
reality  in  its  religion.  Christ  as  supreme  moral  Per- 
sonality is  the  world's  supreme  Saviour.  Christianity 
can  come  to  its  own  only  as  it  transcends  the  realm  of 
mechanical  explanation  and  scientific  method,  and 
trusts  the  interpretations  of  the  world  as  purpose  and 
meaning  and  infinite  worth.  The  living  ideals  of  reli- 
gion and  ethics,  as  well  as  the  ideals  of  science,  must 
find  satisfaction  in  our  view  of  the  cosmic  life.  Cause 
and  effect  are  no  more  cosmic  facts  than  conscience 
and  creative  will. 

Surely  some  of  the  crucial  experiences  of  the  War, 
the  agony  of  our  intellectual  questionings,  must  bring 
a  renewed  conviction  of  the  emptiness  of  a  mechanical 
universe,  and  of  the  truth  of  a  universe  which  is  life 
and  warmth  and  sympathy  and  purpose  and  love! 
No  little  God  can  heal  a  broken-hearted  world.  It  is 
a  rational  faith  that  demands,  though  it  but  dimly 
understands,  a  living  God  in  control  of  life  who  is 
himself  Sympathy  and  Self-Sacrifice  and  Present  Help, 
sharing  our  suffering  and  our  work  of  reconstruction. 
This  world  is  a  living  world  of  a  good  God,  not  the 
dead,  meaningless  thing  that  mechanism  aflSrms.  The 
pitiless  ideals  of  machinery  and  force  are  not  our 
guides  to  the  great  redemptive  truths;  but  the  pitying, 
unconquered  Christ  and  his  Cross.  The  cosmic  mean- 
ing of  these  things  is  that  we  have  a  Christlike,  cross- 


DEMOCRATIZING  THEOLOGY  261 

bearing  God;  and  this  is  therefore  a  world  where 
Christlikeness  and  cross-bearing  always  pay,  in  spite 
of  appearances.  The  profound  meaning  of  preaching 
a  living  Christ  as  a  Saviour  is  just  this:  that  the  living. 
Christlike  God  is  a  Saviour!  When  the  church  utterly 
believes  that,  we  shall  witness  a  regeneration  of  reli- 
gion as  power.  For  no  truth  is  mightier  to  bless  life 
than  belief  in  a  living  God. 

Ill 

I  have  spoken  of  Orthodoxy  and  of  Mechanism  as 
enemies  of  the  spiritual  interpretation  of  life.  My 
third  point  is  that  Externalism  must  be  overthrown 
in  the  democratizing  process.  The  essentially  spirit- 
ual is  an  inward  movement,  an  inward  act,  an  inward 
achievement.  Great  religion  moves  fundamentally 
from  within,  outward;  not  from  without,  inward. 

It  will  be  apparent  that  my  three  points  are  but 
three  angles  of  approach  to  the  same  plea,  namely, 
that  personality  is  a  form  of  power  that  works  best 
when  it  can  manage  its  problems  in  the  insight  of 
creative  freedom;  when  the  creative  will  is  seen  as  an 
energy  that  lays  hold  of  the  cosmic  sources  of  life, 
personal  and  social.  The  cosmic  contacts  are  within 
the  hearts  of  men,  in  the  heights  and  depths  of  their 
moral  experiences,  not  in  the  external  mechanism  of 
the  outer,  visible  world.  Prayer  is  a  living  moral  act 
by  which  a  man  lays  hold  of  the  environing  energy 
and  knows  God  as  Moral  Help.  The  well  of  living 
water  has  its  source  within  us! 

To  an  age  that  is  learning  so  well  the  lessons  of  the 
scientific  control  of  life,  this  gospel  of  the  spiritual 
control  of  life  seems  like  an  outgrown  superstition,  a 


262  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

fairy-story  of  our  childhood.  For  we  must  acknowl- 
edge and  give  unstinted  praise  to  the  mastery  of  life 
that  has  come  through  scientific  invention.  It  has 
helped  us  to  throw  off  the  superstitions  and  the  slav- 
eries of  the  past.  And  the  New  Age  that  is  opening 
promises  to  bring  undreamt-of  modes  of  scientific 
ministry  and  power  for  the  blessing  of  our  human 
world. 

But  there  is  a  deadly  peril  to  the  soul  in  this  un- 
paralleled progress  in  scientific  achievement,  if  it  con- 
fuses and  stampedes  the  Christian  Church  from  its 
ancient,  original  conviction  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
must  come  to  the  world  through  the  souls  of  men,  and 
not  from  without.  The  only  salvation  against  the 
peril  of  the  scientific  control  of  life  is  that  the  church 
shall  keep  alive  its  original  message,  that  is,  the  spirit- 
ual control  of  life.  The  finest  achievements  of  human 
invention  serve  the  ends  of  diabolism  quite  as  effec- 
tively as  the  ends  of  ethical  spiritualism.  Science  as 
such  is  neutral  on  that  point.  Scholarship  can  Ger- 
manize the  world  or  it  can  Christianize  it.  Germany 
outranked  the  world  in  many  lines  of  scientific  con- 
trol, and  she  deserves  credit  for  it.  But  she  lost  the 
mastery  that  has  to  be  achieved  from  within,  and  a 
world-catastrophe  has  resulted.  What  doth  it  profit 
a  man  or  a  nation  if  it  gain  scientific  control  of  the 
whole  world,  and  lose  the  spiritual  control  of  its  own 
souLf^  If  the  soul  has  not  learned  moral  mastery,  self- 
mastery,  it  will  run  amuck,  a  world-wrecking  force! 

Externalism  is  the  form  of  thinking  in  many  fields 
which  does  not  acknowledge  the  inner  source  of  con- 
trol and  value  in  personal  life.  When  a  labor  leader 
recently    wrote,    "Altruism    is   unscientific,"    he    was 


DEMOCRATIZING  THEOLOGY  263 

speaking  the  language  of  externalism,  denying  the 
worth  of  self-sacrifice  and  love.  When  we  put  our 
trust  in  economic  and  political  programs  as  the  su- 
preme way  to  manage  men  and  women,  that  is  ex- 
ternalism. When  we  frankly  talk  of  wages  and  short 
hours  as  the  chief  labor  problems,  that  is  externalism. 
When  we  say  anything  which  forgets  that  men  and 
women  are  not  things,  but  offspring  of  the  Almighty, 
that  is  externalism.  When  we  treat  society  as  though 
redemption  could  come  from  without,  without  trans- 
forming the  very  souls  of  people,  that  is  externalism. 
The  inwardness  of  the  spiritual  control  that  redeems 
and  saves  society  is  the  characteristic  insight  of  Jesus, 
the  characteristic  note  of  great  Christianity.  When  a 
preacher  forgets  this  and  tries  simply  to  get  Jesus 
behind  his  own  social  program,  he  has  lost  Jesus' 
distinctive  message. 

It  may  be  put  in  this  way.  There  is  a  great  contest 
going  on  in  the  church  to-day  between  Christianity 
conceived  as  a  method  of  practical  service,  and  Chris- 
tianity conceived  as  a  message,  a  spiritual  philosophy 
of  life.  The  ministers  are  aligning  themselves  on  the 
issue.  There  are  those  who  lead  with  a  passion  for 
better  methods.  Reorganized  work  and  institutional- 
ized work  are  the  fruit  of  this  leadership.  It  is  a  sign 
of  awakening  with  a  promise  of  a  better  future  for  the 
church.  It  speaks  much  of  efficiency,  the  efficiency 
of  improved  methods. 

Then  there  are  the  ministers  who  feel  that  men 
and  women  need  new  motives,  new  meanings,  new 
incentives,  comfort,  sympathy,  help,  and  companion- 
ship. They  feel  that  nothing  challenges  and  arouses 
and  heals  like  an  evangel  of  divine  meaning  and  love 


264  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  inward  transformation.  Such  leadership  tries  to 
keep  the  vision  of  a  Hving  God  before  the  eyes  of  the 
people,  a  heavenly  Father  who  wants  to  awaken  a 
childlike  spirit  in  men.  It  lays  much  stress  upon 
preaching  a  gospel  to  arouse  and  sustain  the  spirits 
of  men. 

On  the  whole  our  churches  are  tending  to  become 
institutional  or  social  centers  rather  than  places  for 
prayer  and  worship.  Our  ministers  feel  a  strong  call 
to  become  business  managers  or  popular  exponents  of 
industrial  unions  rather  than  prophetic  guides  of  the 
inner  life.  We  put  great  stress  upon  the  practical,  the 
concrete,  the  visible,  in  our  religious  thinking.  We 
are  possessed  or  obsessed  by  the  idea  of  administering 
to  life  from  the  outside  and  controlling  it  from  the 
outside.  The  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
came  home  from  a  great  ministry  to  the  needs  of 
our  boys  in  uniform.  Their  practical  service  was 
inestimable.  The  effect  has  been  to  raise  a  somewhat 
confused  issue  as  to  whether  the  religion  of  the  future 
will  be  a  matter  of  purely  practical  service.  We  are 
told  that  numbers  of  pastors  returned  to  resign 
their  pastorates  in  order  to  become  Y.  M.  C.  A.  work- 
ers. Certainly  a  good  many  Christian  ministers 
returned  from  war  service  with  a  feeling  of  impa- 
tience for  the  slow-working  processes  of  moral  educa- 
tion and  spiritual  ministry;  they  feel  called  to  large 
tasks  of  "organization"  and  "administration."  They 
have  felt  the  pulse  of  the  big  movement  in  the  world's 
life  and  they  have  made  a  wrong  diagnosis.  They 
have  lost  something  of  Jesus'  vision  of  the  funda- 
mental greatness  of  the  leaven  method  of  saving  souls, 
and  are  impatient  to  save  "society,"  not  by  the  laws 


DEMOCRATIZING  THEOLOGY  265 

of  moral  health,  but  by  applying  some  "social"  or 
"civic"  or  "economic"  or  "political"  remedy.  Surely 
there  is  peril  to  the  soul  of  the  world  in  this  wide- 
spread ethical  confusion! 

All  of  the  symptoms  seem  to  point  to  a  cleavage 
between  the  two  ideals  of  Christian  ministry.  And 
I  am  not  sure  but  the  greatest  problem  before  the 
church  in  the  immediate  future  is  the  problem  that 
lies  behind  these  symptoms.  What  is  practical  Chris- 
tianity? 

Shall  the  church  of  the  future  be  a  regenerating 
church  with  a  message,  or  shall  it  be  an  organizing 
church  with  its  emphasis  upon  efficient  methods?  Is 
it  a  gospel  that  human  life  most  needs,  or  is  it  better 
methods  and  organization  and  laws?  Shall  the  future 
church  work  with  a  spiritual  passion  or  a  practical 
passion — when  we  see  the  problem  in  the  right  pro- 
portion, what  kind  of  minister  shall  we  need?  It  is 
true  that  the  minister  who  is  not  alert  to  the  best 
methods  is  lacking  in  efficiency,  but  it  is  equally  true 
that  excessive  emphasis  upon  practical  methods  often 
conceals  spiritual  deadness.  Here  is  the  fatal  weak- 
ness of  much  religious  education  and  pedagogical 
psychology.  The  best  methods  we  must  have;  but  a 
message  great  enough  to  arouse  and  inspirit  and  mo- 
tivate and  sustain  men  seems  to  me  a  prime  condition 
of  religious  awakening.  A  Method  or  a  Message — 
which  is  the  greater  need? 

The  most  practical  appeal  in  the  world,  after  all, 
is  the  call  to  serve  a  great  Cause;  to  live  and  die  for  a 
great  Meaning;  to  march  with  unconscious  heroism  to 
the  music  that  a  conquering  host  makes  advancing 
together  toward  the  goal  of  victory.     The  world  has 


266  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

never  heard  a  greater  recruiting,  fighting,  conquering 
call  to  humanity  than  the  challenge  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  as  a  cause  that  puts  heroism  into  every  task 
and  every  cause.  Shall  the  church  to-day  not  learn 
the  lesson  of  the  Call  of  a  Cause  which  has  aroused 
Canada  and  America  to  heroism  and  sent  our  boys 
out  to  make  the  supreme  sacrifice?  Is  a  method  the 
supreme  need  of  the  church — or  a  great  dramatic 
cause  to  enlist  our  supreme  loyalties? 

The  great  menace  that  hangs  over  the  world  to-day, 
with  its  Peace  Terms,  its  League  of  Nations,  its  Bol- 
shevism, and  its  rising  Socialism,  is  that  we  should 
come  to  feel  that  organization  and  laws  and  a  recon- 
structed world  contain  the  power  of  redemption! 
These  things  are  all  external;  they  are  all  elaborate 
methods  and  programs,  with  machinery  to  enforce 
their  observance;  they  are  in  danger  of  concealing  or 
denying  the  fact  that  spiritual  salvation  must  first  come 
through  men  as  a  transforming  experience,  and  not 
to  men  as  a  New  Social  Order.  We  must  socialize  the 
souls  of  men  before  we  can  reconstruct  society.  We 
must  make  men  brotherly,  as  well  as  organize  brother- 
hoods. It  is  that  inner  dynamism,  that  free  thing  in 
men's  hearts  which  must  be  morally  educated  to 
accept  the  new  order  in  the  spirit  of  willing  coopera- 
tion, of  glad  self-sacrifice,  of  "unscientific"  altruism, 
which  alone  will  make  economic  and  international 
programs  and  peace  methods  workable  as  redemptive 
agencies. 

This  will  seem  obvious  or  childish  to  some  readers. 
It  seems  to  me  the  fateful  point  in  our  social  philoso- 
phies to-day.  Programs,  better  laws,  a  new  social 
order,  we  must  have.    Bless  the  men  and  women  who 


DEMOCRATIZING  THEOLOGY  267 

are  working  away  at  these  problems!  But  all  of  this 
social  reconstruction,  as  such,  believes  that  when  the 
perfect  order  is  outlined,  the  remedy  for  human  ills  is 
at  hand.  It  believes  that  human  nature  will  respond 
automatically  to  its  better  environment.  It  says  that 
"we  can't  save  the  souls  of  men  when  their  stomachs 
are  empty."  And  it  seems  to  assume  that  an  ema- 
ciated soul  can  be  nourished  by  bread  and  beef.  So 
much  social  enthusiasm  has  such  a  superficial  estimate 
of  a  man — it  forgets  that  we  must  save  the  souls  of 
men  if  we  would  save  men  for  society! 

When  a  great  factory  is  built  and  fully  equipped 
with  the  most  modern  machinery,  the  problem  of 
production  is  not  solved.  The  matter  of  power  and 
the  matter  of  men  must  be  solved  before  the  machin- 
ery has  any  significance.  Thus  the  externalism  of  all 
socialistic  programs  from  single  tax  and  abolition  of 
property  to  the  latest  Bolshevism  assumes  that  men 
can  be  manipulated  like  things;  that  cause  and  effect 
and  environment  and  wages  exhaust  the  ways  in 
which  men  can  be  managed.  And  I  am  trying  to  say 
that  the  human  spirit  cannot  be  managed  from  the 
outside;  it  must  be  spiritually  educated  to  manage 
itself  from  within;  it  must  learn  the  greatness  of  fol- 
lowing idealistic  programs,  not  because  it  must,  but 
because  it  will!  It  is  the  will  and  the  affections  that 
must  be  educated,  not  the  intellect  alone.  Democracy 
must  learn  and  teach  the  meaning  of  self-control  to  the 
point  of  unselfishness,  the  free  subordination  of  its 
own  to  that  of  another,  before  externalism  and  social- 
ism will  work.  In  short,  the  task  of  regeneration  must 
go  hand  in  hand  with  the  task  of  reorganization  and 
administration. 


268  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

The  supreme  peril  before  the  church,  and  the  su- 
preme opportunity,  lies  right  here.  Shall  we  so 
democratize  our  thinking  about  religion,  so  throw  off 
the  tyrannies  that  beset  us  of  rigid  standards  of  think- 
ing, of  mechanism  and  externalism  in  our  treatment 
of  religion,  that  we  can  bring  Jesus'  living  message 
to  the  people — namely,  the  challenge  to  rise  up  and 
follow  him,  and  go  against  the  strong  currents  of  life, 
and  wrest  a  victory  over  the  world  in  the  form  of  Christly 
character,  Christly  service,  and  a  new  Christly  order  of 
society  in  which  men  shall  follow  Christ,  not  because 
he  has  the  loaves  and  fishes,  hut  because  they  love  him 
and  want  to  follow  himf 


^J>w*&- 


